high, worth more than five million dollars but too heavy to carry away. So they went to the King's treasure-house for the gold and jewels stored there. "I have brought you to the mouth of me treasury of the world!" cried Drake, and ordered them to break in the door. But an instant later, he fell fainting from loss of blood, for during the fight in the plaza he had received a great wound in the thigh, which he had kept concealed until then. And you can realize how much his men loved Francis Drake, when in spite of his commands they left the treasure to get their wounded captain back to the
SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.
Born in Devonshire, about 1540; died off Porto Bello, in 1596.
boats. The garrison and citizens were rallying, and more troops had just come from Panama, but all the English got safely off, except one of the trumpeters.
For the next six months Drake raided impudently up and down the coast, even capturing a ship in the harbor of Cartagena, the capital city of the Spanish Main,[1] and the Spaniards dared not attack him. Then, when his wound was healed, and the dry season had come, he set out with eighteen Englishmen and thirty Cimaroons from his secret camping-place on the Atlantic shore to cross the Isthmus. The Cimaroons were some
- ↑ See Appendix.
