BALLADS OF THE FLEET
 
 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 RENNELL RODD 
 
 VUTHOR OF ' THE VIOLET CROWN,' ETC. 
 
 WITH A PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE 
 
 EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
 LONDON AND NEW YORK 
 
 1897 
 
 A U rights reserved
 
 TO 
 
 MY MANY FRIENDS 
 
 IN THE FINEST SERVICE IN THE WORLD 
 
 WHO PROUDLY HOLD UNQUESTIONED 
 
 THE INHERITANCE OF DRAKE 
 
 2030051
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE first five poems in the present volume, 
 together with a Ballad of the Armada, which, 
 though later in historical sequence, was published 
 in an earlier collection, are a partial realisation 
 of a projected series of ballads on the great 
 Elizabethan mariners which it has long been my 
 ambition to write. But other calls and occupa- 
 tions have left but little time available to be 
 devoted to a subject which well deserves to 
 claim our undivided attention. 
 
 In dealing with the following episodes in 
 the life of Sir Francis Drake, which have been 
 the leisure occupation of several Egyptian 
 summers, I have for the most part, without 
 neglecting to consult original sources, followed 
 the excellent narrative of my friend Mr. Julian
 
 Vlll BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 Corbett, who has himself approached in the 
 spirit of a poet the romantic story of the great 
 adventurer. He appears to me to have grasped 
 in a masterly manner the true meaning and 
 importance of the much-debated trial and death 
 of Doughty, and in subscribing to his conclu- 
 sions it is satisfactory that one's predilections 
 should without any violence coincide with 
 one's sense of justice. 
 
 In the Appendix to the Hakluyt Society's 
 edition of The World Encompassed, certain 
 documents are published, purporting to be first- 
 hand evidence, which attribute to the character 
 and conduct of Drake a very different colour 
 from that which popular sentiment and tradition 
 have handed down. But Drake, like all men 
 who have rapidly conquered popularity and 
 success, had no lack of enemies, and we may 
 well afford to assume that these documents 
 are the work of detractors and malcontents 
 who had their own reasons for seeking to 
 blacken the great sea-captain's name, even if 
 we do not trace them to the immediate in- 
 spiration of John Doughty, the brother of
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 Thomas, of whom he had of course made an 
 irreconcilable enemy. Drake had, we learn 
 elsewhere, at a critical moment had occasion 
 to stigmatise Francis Fletcher as " the falsest 
 knave alive." 
 
 In forming an estimate of Drake's conduct 
 on this occasion, there are three points which 
 appear to me conclusive. In the first place, 
 the charges which have been brought against 
 him are wholly alien to the nature of the man 
 as we know him from other sources ; secondly, 
 his conduct was never called in question upon 
 his return home, though his opponents in the 
 Council were many and influential ; and in the 
 third place, John Doughty, whom he had 
 spared, though he believed him implicated in 
 his brother's treachery, was subsequently a 
 fellow-conspirator with a Spanish agent in a 
 plot against his life. 
 
 Therefore, in spite of any documents which 
 recent research has brought to light, we may 
 be content to abide by the verdict of the men 
 of his own time and the reasonable judgment 
 of Dr. Johnson.
 
 X BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 The other poems included in the present 
 series will, I trust, tell their own story and 
 require no further introduction ; one only of 
 them, the Ballad of Richard Peake, has been 
 previously published, in the English Illustrated 
 Magazine. 
 
 R. R. 
 
 CAIRO, September 1897.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 THE ELIZABETHANS PAGE 
 
 I. CHILDREN OF THE SEA i 
 
 II. SAN JUAN DE LUA . . . .11 
 
 III. GREENAWAY 41 
 
 IV. THE REPRISAL 49 
 
 V. THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED . . -87 
 
 THE BALLAD OF RICHARD PEAKE . . .15? 
 
 HAWKWOOD 168 
 
 THE DUKE HAS FRIENDS . . . .171 
 
 QUIBERON 174 
 
 THE FIRST OF JUNE 177 
 
 Ax STRATHFIELDSAY 183 
 
 TENNYSON 185 
 
 PUMWANI 1 88 
 
 To GERALD PORTAL 194 
 
 NOTES . 197
 
 CHILDREN OF THE SEA
 
 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE SEA 
 
 IN the Medway mouth by Chatham the King's ships 
 
 lay at ease, 
 The fleet that Tudor Henry built, who was lord of 
 
 the narrow seas ; 
 
 Across the bay were the shipwrights' yards where they 
 
 laid the sturdy keel, 
 And there day through rang hammer stroke, and 
 
 hissed the strident steel ; 
 
 And there they bent the good ship's ribs, and 
 
 trimmed the taper tree, 
 To lift the wide wings windward that bear men over
 
 2 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 The old dismasted war-hulks, whose travelling days 
 
 were done, 
 Lay moored in the quiet reaches where they blistered 
 
 in the sun. 
 
 And many a shore-bird there had found a cranny for 
 
 its nest, 
 And children's faces thronged the ports of those old 
 
 barks at rest. 
 
 In such an ark of olden days, moored hard by 
 
 Chatham dock, 
 There was lodged a sturdy man of God, one Drake 
 
 of Tavistock : 
 
 A stern, unyielding Western man, who held with the 
 
 stern new creed, 
 And deemed that the word was lifeless which did not 
 
 prompt the deed ; 
 
 The creed that yet had its evil days of blood and of 
 
 fire to face 
 Before the faith was 'stablished that has formed the 
 
 English race.
 
 CHILDREN OF THE SEA 3 
 
 He had seen his homestead burning long since, and 
 
 fled for life 
 Across the Dartmoor highlands with his new-born 
 
 child and wife \ 
 
 What time the Western counties rose, that famous 
 
 Whitsuntide, 
 When stalwart Reformation men were on the losing 
 
 side. 
 
 But now was peace in all the land through Edward's 
 
 ebbing days, 
 Before the torch Queen Mary lit had set the shires 
 
 ablaze ; 
 
 And here of a Sunday morning, in sunshine, rain, or 
 
 sleet, 
 The rough sea-folk would gather to the chaplain of 
 
 the Fleet : 
 
 For they that go abroad in ships are earnest men at 
 
 prayer, 
 And they prayed as they would in their own plain way, 
 
 and as yet none vexed them there.
 
 4 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 So half a score of sturdy lads grew up between the 
 
 decks, 
 And paddled in the ebbing shoals, and played at raids 
 
 and wrecks 
 
 Their small black boats would bear them over the 
 
 reaches wide, 
 Where the mimic billows tossed their manes when 
 
 the home-wind met the tide, 
 
 With quick young ^ hands for tiller and sheet alert to 
 
 the pulse of the breeze, 
 And frank young fearless laughter tuned to the 
 
 tumbled seas ; 
 
 While the mother would watch with anxious eyes 
 from the deck of their floating home 
 
 The track where the children guided a nutshell craft 
 in the foam. 
 
 They were nursed on the cradling water by fostering 
 
 wind and wave, 
 And as they had lived, so in after years in the sea 
 
 they found their grave.
 
 CHILDREN OF THE SEA 5 
 
 There, half in wonder and half in awe, they had heard 
 
 grave men debate 
 Dark rumours of the death of kings, and tidings big 
 
 with fate ; 
 
 And they saw the Kentish yeomen arm, and march 
 
 with pike and sword, 
 When Wyatt mustered round his flag the servants of 
 
 the Lord ; 
 
 They heard of the battles lost and won, and the good 
 
 blood spilt in vain, 
 And the infant lips were taught to curse the league 
 
 with Rome and Spain. 
 
 So years rolled on, and the eldest-born went forth and 
 
 took his chance, 
 A 'prentice hand on a ketch that plied to the Channel 
 
 ports and France. 
 
 Dark days had set on England, dark days for such as 
 
 Drake, 
 And lurid through the darkness shone the fagot and 
 
 the stake ;
 
 6 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 It was little enough like boyhood's dream, a dreary life 
 
 at the best, 
 With danger and toil for shipmates, and hunger oft as 
 
 a guest ; 
 
 It was little enough like boyhood's dream when the 
 
 light on a sunset sail, 
 To eyes that followed the outward bound, was more 
 
 than a fairy tale ; 
 
 To crouch chilled through on the dripping planks, 
 
 and watch for the roving lights, 
 When green seas break on the dipping prow through 
 
 the endless wintry nights, 
 
 When the blast drives down from Bergen, and the 
 
 cloud-banks blot the moon, 
 And the evil sea is a churning race from the chalk 
 
 cliffs to the dune ; 
 
 But the mariner's boy was taught his craft, and in 
 
 service learned to rule, 
 And he braced his nerve and he trained his eye in a 
 
 hard and thankless school.
 
 CHILDREN OF THE SEA 7 
 
 He saw the lilied flag of Guise at Calais oust his 
 
 Queen's, 
 And the fleet of England sail with Spain to battle at 
 
 Gravelines ; 
 
 And in the ports of Maas and Scheldt they found no 
 
 better cheer, 
 There too the shadow of the cowl fell deeper year by 
 
 year : 
 
 For a great unrest had touched the time, the world's 
 
 deep heart was stirred, 
 There rang across the northern blasts a voice that 
 
 would be heard, 
 
 A voice that shook the ocean shores where freedom 
 
 wills to dwell, 
 From Zealand and the English cliffs to Nantes and 
 
 La Rochelle : 
 
 The night of years broke into dawn, and now in a 
 
 broader day 
 Men's conscience craved for warrant from those who 
 
 bade obey ;
 
 8 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 And lest this dire contagion spread, and free thought 
 
 breathe again, 
 The flag of the Holy Office waved over the ports of 
 
 Spain ; 
 
 And through the Flemish sand-hills and up the 
 
 Holland dykes 
 The hounds of God were on the trail to flesh the 
 
 Spanish pikes. 
 
 But where their withering mandate fell deep slumbering 
 
 passions woke, 
 For simple men grew great of heart and turned against 
 
 their yoke, 
 
 And the deed of high endeavour was no more to the 
 
 favoured few, 
 But brain and heart were the measure of what every 
 
 man might do. 
 
 The wronged took arms and sought redress at their 
 
 own risk and fee, 
 Shook off their feet the bloody dust, and gathered in 
 
 the sea ;
 
 CHILDREN OF THE SEA 9 
 
 The London merchants mounted guns, and armed the 
 
 trading barque, 
 The boatmen left their nets and lines to follow de la 
 
 Mark, 
 
 So corsairs swept the narrow seas, and watched the 
 
 highway south, 
 While justice in her ruder form spoke through the 
 
 cannon's mouth ; 
 
 Long years the trembling nations paused, the red fires 
 smouldered low, 
 
 While monarchs knew within their gates the inter- 
 necine foe ; 
 
 Till there arose in island England a Queen, by God's 
 
 own grace, 
 Who gathered in her ample heart the heart of all her 
 
 race, 
 
 The race which loving freedom of their own free will 
 
 obeyed, 
 Till champions mustered round her, and trust with 
 
 trust repaid ;
 
 io BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 She saw the crisis of the age, absorbed her nation's 
 
 faith, 
 And faced a world's defiance with battle to the death. 
 
 Through those dark years of doubt and stress the 
 
 coaster plied her trade, 
 The preacher's lad grew great and strong, and so the 
 
 man was made. 
 
 Such was the school of Francis Drake, who sowed in 
 
 the years to be 
 The seed of England's empire in the furrows of the
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 
 
 THIS is a tale of a treason, with the fate of a world in 
 
 its wake 
 The treason of Don Alvarez and the oath of Francis 
 
 Drake ! 
 
 It was nigh twelve months since Captain John had 
 
 beat out of Plymouth Sound 
 With the Queen's tall ships the Jesus and the Minion 
 
 southward bound ; 
 
 And Drake in the little Judith had sailed in his 
 
 kinsman's train, 
 With his all on earth in the venture to trade in the 
 
 Spanish Main.
 
 14 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 They met with a gale in Biscay, they had started late 
 
 in the year, 
 And the Queen's tall ship the Jesus was leaky and ill 
 
 to steer ; 
 
 So they halted in Grand Canary and righted their 
 
 disarray, 
 Recaulked the straining timbers and then to the 
 
 South away ! 
 
 They harried the Lisbon traders with Fenner's name 
 
 for a plea, 
 For the law of quick reprisals was the grim old law at 
 
 sea; 
 
 And the Grace of God got an English name and an 
 
 English flag at the main 
 Ere they sailed for Margarita and the ocean world of 
 
 Spain. 
 
 There's many a tale were well forgot, there's little 
 
 enough to boast 
 Of the work they did those winter months in the 
 
 bights of the Guinea coast.
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 15 
 
 They did not barter their English gold for the palm- 
 oil or the date, 
 
 But the hulls that came in ballast went out with a 
 living freight ; 
 
 On an evil day, John Hawkins, you took up with an 
 
 evil trade, 
 And you set your course by a luckless star with the 
 
 fruit of a bloody raid ! 
 
 Though many had held it was God's work too, while 
 
 in that dark Afric hell 
 Before the inhuman altars the weak and the captive 
 
 fell; 
 
 While the wretch foredoomed to the slaughter might 
 
 live to be sold a slave, 
 The brand be plucked from the burning and a soul 
 
 be won to save. 
 
 But little recked they of doubts or fears that vexed 
 
 the soul of the wise, 
 They did as the world did round them, and they 
 
 claimed their share of the prize ;
 
 16 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 And their sons shall make atonement, in the years 
 
 that are to be, 
 For the freight they bore to the New World's shore 
 
 through the still Sargasso Sea. 
 
 They were seven weeks in the ocean and never a 
 
 a sail went by, 
 Cramped in the lonely vastness of infinite sea and 
 
 sky : 
 
 But ever the stars moved eastward, and the new stars 
 
 rose to ken, 
 The awe of the waters scared them, and they longed 
 
 for the paths of men : 
 
 Till at last with the sunrise glimmer there rose through 
 
 an opal sea 
 A shadowy range of islands and the haze of a land on 
 
 the lee ; 
 
 And the mariner's boy stared wondering eyed, for 
 
 the wings of the wind were furled, 
 And the capes hung high in the still mirage of dawn 
 
 on a phantom world ;
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 17 
 
 A land where never our island oaks had fared since 
 
 the years began, 
 Until John Hawkins taught them the path of the 
 
 Englishman. 
 
 Then a breeze came perfume-laden from the heart of 
 
 the tropic zone, 
 And crinkling waves tossed round them the drift of a 
 
 shore unknown : 
 
 And the winged fish rose on the face of the deep to 
 
 skim like a cloud of spray 
 From edge to edge of the curling blue and into the 
 
 blue away ; 
 
 But the sun still beckoned them westward till he 
 
 sank in a blaze of fire 
 On the fabled hills of a thousand dreams and the 
 
 goal of a world's desire ; 
 
 While the parting mists wreathed upwards in delicate 
 
 rosy whirls, 
 And there peered through a rift in the broken veil 
 
 the peaks of the isle of pearls. 
 c
 
 1 8 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 Now Philip in his great wisdom had laid England 
 
 under a ban, 
 And never a New World settler might trade with an 
 
 Englishman. 
 
 But the lust of the land was on them, the craving of 
 
 men confined 
 For a draft of the fresh spring water, the snuff of the 
 
 off-shore wind, 
 
 So they landed in Margarita in despite of the King of 
 
 Spain, 
 They paid their footing in honest gold and quickened 
 
 their hearts again. 
 
 And they saw the New World's mountains rise up 
 
 from a palm-fringed shore 
 Where ever on fangs of coral the long surf-rollers 
 
 roar; 
 
 Those crags that Amyas Preston and Somers are soon 
 
 to scale 
 By pathways hewn through the tangled brakes in the 
 
 blinding mists and hail,
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 19 
 
 Up mountain walls impregnable to be conquered 
 
 stair by stair 
 Till Sant lago fall a prey to the men who grandly 
 
 dare. 
 
 But they skirted steep La Guayra till they came to a 
 
 lonely bay, 
 In the gulf that men called " Triste," where was none 
 
 to say them nay ; 
 
 And there they abode careening, refitting the masts 
 
 and spars, 
 And they learned the signs of the seasons and the 
 
 march of the tropic stars. 
 
 Here all was a land of marvel, the fireflies' glimmer 
 
 at night, 
 The shore where the sea-weed gardens rock under the 
 
 phosphor light ; 
 
 The great tree-ferns and the coco palms, and the 
 
 wild lime's sweet perfume, 
 The edge of the forest crimsoned with the great 
 
 hibiscus bloom,
 
 20 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 Where clinging from each green tangle hang down 
 
 like a cluster of bells 
 Purple and pink and scarlet the frail convolvulus 
 
 cells ; 
 
 Where the moth-birds pause and flutter a shower of 
 
 gems in the air, 
 Dip slender bills in the waxen cups and drink of the 
 
 nectar there. 
 
 So a passion of high adventure came over that English 
 
 crew, 
 They had seen the New World's promise and the way 
 
 that the east wind blew, 
 
 They had only stood on the threshold, on the marge 
 
 of the siren west, 
 But the magic wand had touched them, and now they 
 
 would never rest. 
 
 From thence they began their trading the peace of 
 
 the realms their plea, 
 And the right of open harbour to all from the open 
 
 sea.
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 21 
 
 The Spanish governors shook their heads, but they 
 
 made protest in vain, 
 And the Guinea freight was bartered in despite of the 
 
 King of Spain ; 
 
 For the settlers made them welcome, and came off in 
 
 the night aboard, 
 Or they claimed their rights of market at the point of 
 
 the naked sword ; 
 
 And it prospered those free-traders till deep in the 
 
 fcsus' hold 
 Was a smouldering fire of jewels and a shimmer of 
 
 virgin gold. 
 
 Then merry at heart they hoisted sail with a home- 
 ward facing prow, 
 
 For each had a share in the venture, and each was a 
 rich man now. 
 
 It was northward first, then eastward, the course that 
 
 the Gulf Stream ran, 
 Where it swept to the bend of Cuba from the elbow 
 
 of Yucatan ;
 
 22 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 And there the storms broke on them, and the wave 
 
 came nigh to whelm : 
 The hulls were foul, and they made no way, and the 
 
 Jesus lost her helm. 
 
 Oh nerve of iron and heart of oak were set in the 
 
 simple mould 
 Of the men who sped to the unknown seas in the 
 
 crazy craft of old ! 
 
 They drove past misty headlands with the chill of 
 
 death on their souls, 
 And they heard the thunders breaking over uncharted 
 
 shoals ; 
 
 And thrice each deemed that the rest were lost, and 
 
 scoured the seas in vain, 
 And thrice each fought in a week of storm with the 
 
 might of the hurricane ; 
 
 They saw no sun in the daytime, and the stars at 
 
 night were blind, 
 And they sped for a week on an unknown course at 
 
 the mercy of the wind ;
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 23 
 
 Till their desperate hearts were broken, and as men 
 
 who have nought to lose, 
 They ran right in to the hornet's nest in the port of 
 
 Vera Cruz. 
 
 So they moored in the outer harbour, while the ships' 
 
 bells rang to prayer, 
 And they cried on the Lord who had spared their 
 
 lives to be with them even there ; 
 
 For this was the way with the western folk in storm 
 
 or battle or raid, 
 They wrought with a will, and they fought with a will, 
 
 and so with a will they prayed. 
 
 For strong they said are the whirlwinds, and long is 
 
 the arm of the foe, 
 But the finger of God is stronger in the path where 
 
 seamen go. 
 
 Now it chanced that there in the haven the Indies' 
 
 Plate Fleet lay, 
 To wait for the convoy galleons that were due since 
 
 many a day ;
 
 2\ BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 And all Potosi's hoarded gold, and the wealth of half 
 
 Peru, 
 Lay under the guns of Captain John, of Drake, and 
 
 their English few. 
 
 So the governor manned his galley, and the Dons put 
 
 out to greet 
 The long-expected vanguard as he deemed of the 
 
 convoy fleet ; 
 
 But he found himself on an alien deck, and he stared 
 
 at Captain John, 
 And he bowed a cold obeisance, and made haste to 
 
 get him gone ; 
 
 While couriers sped fast inland to ride with the evil 
 
 news, 
 There were heretics and pirate craft in the port of 
 
 Vera Cruz. 
 
 Then stoutly smiled John Hawkins, and he said, 
 
 " Sith need must be, 
 I will hold this port of the King of Spain till my 
 
 ships can face the sea :
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 25 
 
 " By the chance of storm and our evil star we are 
 
 here in the lion's jaw ; 
 And here, my lads, we must hold our own by the need 
 
 that knows no law ! " 
 
 Now the haven pass is narrow, but it widens deep 
 
 inland 
 From the isle which bars the entrance and the long 
 
 low spit of sand ; 
 
 So they warped their ships to the new sea-wall in the 
 
 lee of the island south, 
 Where the lead gave seven fathoms, and they held 
 
 San Juan's mouth. 
 
 And they landed guns on the island, they worked 
 
 with might and main, 
 And they built the fort Defiance in the jaws of the 
 
 King of Spain. 
 
 No moon betrayed their counsel as they laboured 
 
 through the night, 
 And dawn broke over a freshening sea with the 
 
 convoy fleet in sight.
 
 26 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 There were six tall ships on the starboard line, and 
 
 seven more on the port, 
 But the English flag was waving from a spar on the 
 
 island fort. 
 
 So Don Alvarez de Bazan hove to outside the bar, 
 It was he that took the London ships in the roads of 
 Gibraltar ; 
 
 Who had ordered the flag of England to be trailed in 
 
 his rudder's wake, 
 And the crews to the Holy Office for the galleys or 
 
 the stake. 
 
 Then a boat shot out from the haven and drew to the 
 
 flagship's lee, 
 John Hawkins sat in the stern-sheets, with his cutlass 
 
 on his knee ; 
 
 "To the Lord High Admiral greeting, for the peace 
 
 that is between 
 King Philip's royal majesty and my own most gracious 
 
 Queen ;
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 27 
 
 " We be English seamen weather-bound in a port of 
 
 the King of Spain, 
 As we came in peace we would bide in peace, and in 
 
 peace sail out again ; 
 
 " We met with a gale off Cuba, we are leaky and out 
 
 of gear, 
 But yet, my Lord, by your evil chance we are like to 
 
 be masters here. 
 
 " There is one way into the haven, and that is a narrow 
 
 way, 
 And not one ship can make it if I choose to say you 
 
 nay; 
 
 " If the breeze should freshen to half a gale, as it blew 
 
 for a week and more, 
 You'll find no break five hundred miles in the surf on 
 
 the long lee shore, 
 
 " We hold the fort on the island bar, and I swear to 
 
 you on my creed, 
 I will sink you all in the narrow pass if my warrant 
 
 must be my need.
 
 28 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 " But if you will pledge your honour in the name of 
 
 the King of Spain 
 You will do my ships no violence so long as we shall 
 
 remain, 
 
 " You will neither let nor hinder my men upon shore 
 
 or sea, 
 And leave the ward of the island fort to my captains 
 
 and to me ; 
 
 " If you sign these terms of treaty here under your 
 
 hand and seal 
 Ye shall pass in peace to your moorings, and all shall 
 
 be to your weal ; 
 
 " But if you will give me no such bond, in the name 
 
 of England's Queen 
 I give you the bond of an Englishman that ye shall 
 
 not enter in ! " 
 
 Then the face of Don Alvarez grew dark with an evil 
 
 frown, 
 As his captains came about him and they paced it up 
 
 and down ;
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 29 
 
 For he held the King's commission to chase and 
 
 harry and take 
 The bodies of one John Hawkins and his kinsman 
 
 Francis Drake. 
 
 The day wore by debating while the freshening north 
 
 wind grew, 
 And the waves came crisply curling with a long white 
 
 edge to the blue ; 
 
 The shrill breeze sang in the cordage, and panic grew 
 
 with the wind, 
 He looked at the lee-shore breakers, he looked at the 
 
 bond, and signed. 
 
 So the stately galleons entered between the isle and 
 
 the crags, 
 While our men stood all to quarters and the Queen's 
 
 ships dipped their flags. 
 
 The Spaniards moored in the inner port where the 
 
 laden Plate Fleet lay, 
 The English bode by the new sea-wall, but the breeze 
 
 died down with the day.
 
 30 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 Then all went well for a little while, there was change 
 
 of courtesies, 
 The men took heart of confidence and they landed 
 
 on the quays ; 
 
 They marvelled much at the giant ships that were 
 
 nigh two thousand tons, 
 With castles set on the poop and prow and tier over 
 
 tier of guns : 
 
 Not all the fleet of England could have mustered 
 
 such a line, 
 And they pledged the Dons in fellowship, and they 
 
 tasted Spanish wine. 
 
 It was noon on the third day after, we had half of 
 
 our crews away 
 When the sudden rattle of musket fire rang over the 
 
 silent bay ; 
 
 The galleons slipped a cable's length and set nearer 
 
 with the tide, 
 While a great black hulk towed seaward swang round 
 
 to the Minion's side.
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 31 
 
 There was never a word of warning till the ships' sides 
 
 clashed, and then 
 Their boarders sprang to the ratlins and the hulk 
 
 grew quick with men ; 
 
 But the war drums beat to quarters, and a cry went 
 
 round our ships, 
 The crews sprang up the hatchways with " Treason ! " 
 
 on their lips ; 
 
 And they snatched up pike and hatchet and capstan- 
 bar and sword, 
 
 And they dashed out on the Spaniards, and they flung 
 them overboard ; 
 
 While stricken men with gaping wounds came swim- 
 ming off from shore, 
 
 And boats put back in frantic haste to the ships they 
 reached no more. 
 
 They hoisted sail in a hail of shot, and they cut the 
 
 hawsers free, 
 So the Minion and the Judith won safe to the open
 
 32 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 But the Jesus lay dismantled where the galleons ringed 
 
 her round, 
 And they opened fire at the stroke of noon in black 
 
 San Juan's Sound. 
 
 The land troops crossed in barges by the shoals from 
 
 the haven town, 
 They took the fort on the island, and they mowed the 
 
 gunners down ; 
 
 They trained her guns on the Jesus, and she fought 
 
 like a wolf at bay, 
 With the hound pack barking round her, cut off from 
 
 the narrow way. 
 
 They will plead reserves of conscience, and the oath 
 
 that is no oath, 
 But dearly Don Alvarez shall pay for his broken 
 
 troth, 
 
 For the gunners of the Jesus have laid their pieces 
 
 true, 
 And they struck him hard on the water-line, and they 
 
 lacked the flagship through ;
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 33 
 
 The wave rushed in by the breaches, and there rose a 
 
 shuddering cry 
 From the soldiers penned in the fighting-decks to 
 
 every saint in the sky, 
 
 The main-mast snapped and toppled with the banner 
 
 of proud Castile, 
 The poop sank down in the churning sea, and the 
 
 stem showed clean to the keel ; 
 
 While far away from the Judith's deck they answered 
 
 a cheer that broke, 
 As the Admiral's great Armada went down in a cloud 
 
 of smoke. 
 
 " So the devil comes to his own again !" laughed grim 
 
 old Captain John, 
 And his blue eyes flashed through the powder smirch, 
 
 as he roared from the poop, " Fight on !" 
 
 Then the galleys filled with boarders, and ever again 
 
 they came, 
 With their muskets laid on the gunwale and their 
 
 tow-pikes all aflame ;
 
 34 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 But he dropped his main and fore yard, and he blocked 
 
 his decks across, 
 And ever again the boarders went back to their shame 
 
 and loss. 
 
 There were four great galleons silenced when the 
 
 powder was spent at last, 
 When they loosed their fireships on him, and then the 
 
 end came fast ; 
 
 So he manned his boats with the rest of his crew, and 
 
 they cut their desperate way 
 To the harbour gate and the narrow strait and into 
 
 the outer bay ; 
 
 And there as they won to the Minion and climbed to 
 
 tia&JwUtKs decks, 
 They could see the Jesus burning in the midst of a 
 
 ring of wrecks ; 
 
 And all the fruits of the voyage, the silver and gems 
 
 and gold, 
 The charts they had made, and the traitor's bond, went 
 
 down with the burning hold.
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 35 
 
 There was none that dared to follow of all they had 
 
 fought so well, 
 The kindlier sea received them and the shadow of 
 
 evening fell. 
 
 Day broke on a dreary ocean, San Juan was far 
 
 behind, 
 And the God of the just and unjust tethered the wings 
 
 of the wind. 
 
 So they hugged the reefs long days and nights, till 
 
 they chanced on an inland reach, 
 Where the surf was still, and the lead sank deep, and 
 
 the wave lay asleep on the beach ; 
 
 Where the smooth transparent water was clear as a 
 film of air, 
 
 Over fathom-deep weed gardens and sea things marvel- 
 lous fair ; 
 
 Where the forest pressed to the blue tide's marge, and 
 
 never mayhap till then 
 Wide wandering ships had carried the venturous lives 
 
 of men.
 
 36 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 And a hundred souls of their own free will were left 
 
 on the tropic shore, 
 Since they never might win to England with the 
 
 burden that they bore. 
 
 Solemn was that leave-taking, where they knelt in the 
 
 alien sand, 
 Commending these their comrades into their Maker's 
 
 hand; 
 
 For a year and more in an alien world they had shared 
 
 in weal and woe, 
 Had breasted storm and affronted toil, and had held 
 
 their own with the foe ; 
 
 And those rough old dogs of the ocean were tender of 
 
 heart and true, 
 And comrade clung to his comrade staunch as captain 
 
 clung to his crew ; 
 
 There were salt wet tears on the furrowed cheeks that 
 
 the tropic suns had tanned 
 As they bade farewell, and they left them there to their 
 
 chance in an unknown land ;
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 37 
 
 To an evil fate, and an unforeseen, as it proved in the 
 
 years to be, 
 When the curse of the Holy Office fell over that island 
 
 sea. 
 
 It was well-nigh three months later the watch on the 
 Hoe descried 
 
 The wraith of a battered warship beat in on the flood- 
 ing tide ; 
 
 Through the dismal wintry waters, through infinite 
 
 trials past, 
 Hungry and lean and spent with storm, it was Drake 
 
 come home at last. 
 
 And later yet in the new year's dawn came the little 
 
 Minion too, 
 Smitten with plague in the ocean and manned with a 
 
 stranger crew. 
 
 But the length and the breadth of England took fire 
 
 at the news they brought, 
 The treason of Don Alvarez and the fight John 
 
 Hawkins fought.
 
 38 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 And Drake has got him another ship, and sworn to 
 
 the Lord of Hosts 
 He will claim redress at the cannon's mouth round all 
 
 their ports and coasts, 
 
 Till the treasure stores of the Indies have atoned to 
 
 him fifty-fold 
 The loss of the good ship Jesus and her men and the 
 
 Guinea gold ; 
 
 And so he has gathered a willing crew with the rest 
 
 of his Judith's men, 
 And they're off once more on the same old trail, and 
 
 it's Westward Ho again ; 
 
 And wherever the wide seas open he will brook no 
 
 bar nor stay, 
 And there's never a wave but English sails shall claim 
 
 for their free highway ; 
 
 Till the sceptre shall pass of ocean, and the whole of 
 
 the world shall know 
 That an English life is a sacred thing wherever a 
 
 keel can go !
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 39 
 
 And Captain John was on all men's lips, and his loss 
 
 was England's gain, 
 For his single ship had shattered the myth of the 
 
 might of Spain.
 
 GREENAWAY
 
 GREENAWAY 
 
 THE mother looked out from the window-bay, looked 
 
 over the woods to the sea, 
 And, " Where are those three bonny boys of mine ? " 
 
 and " where are they gone ? " said she. 
 
 The gardener's lad with the wave-tanned face looked 
 
 up from the blush-rose bed, 
 " They have taken the boat and dropped on the ebb 
 
 at dawn of the day," he said. 
 
 The mother turned from the window-bay, she was 
 
 fair as three-months' bride, 
 " Ah well-a-day for my three wild boys and their lust 
 
 of the sea," she sighed.
 
 44 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 But deeper yet had the mother sighed, could she 
 
 know what the years would bring, 
 The gift of the sea, and the doom of the sea, and the 
 
 faith of a craven king. 
 
 A stone's throw under the windows by dale and 
 
 covert and down 
 The Dart winds home from its moorland source to 
 
 the roads and the haven town ; 
 
 And thither it was in an old sea-boat from their home 
 
 at Greenaway 
 The eager sons of the manor-house would fare for 
 
 their holiday ; 
 
 There were Humphry and Adrien Gilbert, with their 
 
 friend from over the moor, 
 The yeoman's son John Davies to tug at the heavy 
 
 oar, 
 
 And the lad that held the tiller, the fourth and 
 
 youngest one, 
 Was the heir of Walter Raleigh and the same fair 
 
 mother's son.
 
 GREEN A WA Y 45 
 
 What deeds of wild adventure they have dared on 
 
 that Devon stream 
 When the fabled West was an easy quest to a boy's 
 
 light-hearted dream. 
 
 When the river-reach was their tropic sea, and the 
 
 coast was the Spanish Main, 
 And the blistered wreck on the ebb-tide shoal was a 
 
 great galleass of Spain. 
 
 And so they would come to the haven, where, moored 
 
 to the laden quays, 
 Were the ships at rest with their canvas furled from 
 
 a hundred marvellous seas ; 
 
 The lofty poops and the painted hulls of the beauti- 
 ful ships of old, 
 
 The carven prows and the open ports with their guns 
 that shone like gold ; 
 
 For the boys that were born and cradled where the 
 
 breeze of the ocean blows, 
 They loved those ships with the passion that only the 
 
 sea child knows.
 
 46 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 And the Channel rovers knew them, the men of the 
 
 western shire, 
 And told them tales of the ocean life and the world 
 
 of a boy's desire ; 
 
 There was one that had sailed with Strangways, 
 
 another with red Tremayne ; 
 They could tell of the Holy Office and the rule of 
 
 the monk in Spain ; 
 
 Of the corsair folk in the eastern isles with the long 
 
 brass guns on deck, 
 Of the north sea spray, of a gale in the bay, of a fight, 
 
 of a run, of a wreck ; 
 
 Of the fur-clad folk and the frost-bound shores where 
 
 the day and the night are one, 
 And the drifting ice-floes sparkle to the gleam of the 
 
 midnight sun ; 
 
 But the tale that held them longest was the tale of 
 
 the isles that lie 
 Far over the great Atlantic and the land of the sunset 
 
 sky;
 
 GREEN A WA Y 47 
 
 Where veiled in rumour and fable, withdrawn as a 
 
 virgin bride, 
 The world to be wooed and conquered was a quest 
 
 that was still untried. 
 
 Then the lips would part and the eager eyes go west- 
 ward over the sea, 
 
 " A little while, but a little while, and the time will 
 come for me." 
 
 Now back for the tide sets inland, and the mother 
 
 frets in the hall, 
 "We have far to go ere the sun be low, good hap to 
 
 ye, masters all ! :> 
 
 " God speed to ye, gentle worships good hap to ye, 
 
 honest John, 
 Good luck to you, young Squire Raleigh, and keep 
 
 your eye on the Don ! " 
 
 The mother looked out as the westering sun went 
 under the steep moor-side, 
 
 And " Where are those three bonny boys of mine ? 
 they are long from their home," she sighed.
 
 48 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 But deeper yet had the mother sighed, could she 
 
 know what the end would be, 
 For to all save one in the after years their doom came 
 
 out of the sea.
 
 THE REPRISAL
 
 
 THE REPRISAL 
 
 Being the veracious narrative of John Killigrew, gentleman 
 adventurer, who accompanied Captain Francis Drake on his 
 second voyage to Darien ; done into the modern manner. 
 
 OH sweetly rang the Plymouth bells on the day we 
 
 put to sea, 
 When May and June were nearly met and the new 
 
 leaf on the tree ; 
 
 And sweetly over Edgcumbe's isle the setting sun 
 
 declined, 
 It was Whitsun-Eve of May-time, and the May thrill 
 
 in the wind. 
 
 There were hats that waved and kerchiefs, a cheer 
 
 rang round the quays 
 As the fiddler played our anchors up and the new 
 
 sails took the breeze.
 
 52 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 The highlands drew their mantle round, and high up 
 
 on the Hoe, 
 And nestling deep in shadowy hills red lights began 
 
 to show ; 
 
 But the eager heart looked never back on a world so 
 
 good to leave, 
 To the orchard lawns and the cowslip fields and the 
 
 bells of Whitsun-Eve. 
 
 Our captain stood on the Pasha's poop as we won to 
 
 the open sea ; 
 "Now lay her straight in the sunset track, for it's 
 
 Westward Ho ! " said he. 
 
 I sailed with Drake and with Oxenham, and the 
 
 captain's brother John 
 With the rest of those who ventured were aboard of 
 
 the little Swan. 
 
 We were three-and-seventy men and boys when the 
 
 muster-log was told, 
 And only one of the seventy-three who was thirty 
 
 summers old.
 
 THE REPRISAL 53 
 
 The crew were Dart and Plymouth men, with the four 
 I brought from Looe, 
 
 Jack Basset and the Widdicombes, and my foster- 
 brother Drew. 
 
 Two years were gone since the Dragon ship sailed 
 
 out with the self-same men, 
 And Drake had won him his right of way to the Gulf 
 
 of Darien ; 
 
 And the little Swan got an evil name last year on the 
 
 Spanish Main, 
 For the long white wings of the tiny craft were a 
 
 match for the best of Spain. 
 
 The breeze was fair, with the topsails square, and never 
 
 a reef we flew, 
 And the heart of our little captain was a fire to the 
 
 heart of his crew ; 
 
 It passed to a proverb in after-years with the men who 
 
 had loved him well 
 You were sure of heaven with Gilbert, but with Drake 
 
 you had daunted Hell !
 
 54 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 At last we had sight of the Windwards limned like a 
 
 cloud in the sky, 
 It was five weeks out from the Lizard, and the second 
 
 day of July ; 
 
 And not in vain we had proved those seas and charted 
 
 the reefs last year, 
 And laid the course by the star and sun that the 
 
 venture had to steer, 
 
 For we saw strange sails to the eastward, and ran for 
 
 a week of days 
 Past flowery cliffs where the blue wave winds through 
 
 the calm of the island maze. 
 
 The men were mad to be landing, but he suffered it 
 
 not to be 
 Till our track was lost in the wildering isles, and we 
 
 struck on the Carib Sea. 
 
 We voided the path of traders, ran west yet awhile, 
 
 and then 
 Bore down on the midmost channel of the Gulf of 
 
 Darien :
 
 THE REPRISAL 55 
 
 And we came to the hidden haven he had found two 
 
 years before, 
 We anchored under the high cliffs' lee, and at last we 
 
 went ashore. 
 
 We felled the forest timbers and planted a high 
 
 stockade, 
 Where they pieced the jointed pinnace under the 
 
 ceiba's shade ; 
 
 While we shot the mark with the arquebus, we 
 
 measured swords in play, 
 And Drake assigned the prizes that the Dons would 
 
 have to pay ; 
 
 The chattering monkeys swarmed to watch and swung 
 
 on the climbing vine, 
 The parrots screamed in the branches, but of man was 
 
 never a sign. 
 
 A week from the day we landed they had launched 
 
 three handy craft, 
 Twelve-oared and low in the water, and long with a 
 
 shallow draft.
 
 56 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 Their crews were picked and a course was buoyed as 
 the sun dropped low to the west, 
 
 The Devon muscle was good to see on shoulder and 
 arm and chest, 
 
 And the cliffs of the silent haven rang to the helms- 
 man's cries 
 
 As the Minion raced t\\& Jesus and the Judith won the 
 prize, 
 
 When round the sheltering headland, traced black 
 
 on the even glow, 
 Came sailing in a barque of war with a caravel in 
 
 tow! 
 
 In a flash we were back to the Pashds side, and 
 
 Oxenham, mighty of lung, 
 Hailed them over the waters, for he spoke with the 
 
 Spaniard's tongue ; 
 
 While the gunners stood to their pieces with linstocks 
 
 over the breech, 
 But the answer came in the Devonshire with a 
 
 " Plague on your foreign speech ! "
 
 THE REPRISAL 57 
 
 It was Ranee the Channel rover in Sir Edmund 
 
 Horsey's barque, 
 Grown tired of his privateering in the Downs with de 
 
 la Mark ; 
 
 And so he had sailed on fortune's wind right into the 
 
 heart of the west ; 
 And here was a man to our captain's hand, we were 
 
 far too few at the best ; 
 
 For the mettle of Drake had fired us, we were set on 
 
 the wildest plan 
 That ever perchance had dazzled the desperate dreams 
 
 of man ; 
 
 On the coast due east from Nombre lay a cluster of 
 
 isles he knew 
 Girded in reefs and white with shoals that had 
 
 daunted an older crew ; 
 
 He would hide his ships in the wooded isles, and 
 
 thence with a chosen band 
 Creep on by night in the launches under the lee of 
 
 land;
 
 58 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 He would enter the port of Nombre, the great treasure- 
 house of Spain, 
 
 And carry a year's gold harvest back to his ships 
 again. 
 
 So a bond was made and a treaty signed, and the forty 
 
 with Ranee were sworn 
 To stand by Drake in the venture, and we sailed with 
 
 the break of morn. 
 
 We came to the fir-grown islands we sounded wary 
 
 and slow 
 Till we found a way through the sunken rocks where 
 
 the ships might pass in tow, 
 
 And we laid them up in a shore-locked bay that ran 
 
 like a lake inland, 
 With the world-old forest ringing the rim of its silver 
 
 sand; 
 
 We drew the lot and we started, night through we 
 
 tugged at the oar, 
 Seventy men in the launches, and with day drew in to 
 
 the shore ;
 
 THE REPRISAL 59 
 
 We fought with the surf and conquered, we slept 
 
 through the sultry noons, 
 We woke with the shadow of evening and toiled by 
 
 the waning moons ; 
 
 Till the fifth sun sank in a stormy sky, and at last the 
 
 launches lay 
 Adrift on a murky midnight off the point of Nombre 
 
 We knew that beyond that headland a world-famed 
 
 city slept, 
 And closer yet with a muffled stroke the four swift 
 
 launches crept. 
 
 Great clouds shut out the starlight, the moon would 
 
 be late to rise, 
 There was one black void of water under one black 
 
 void of skies ; 
 
 Far off the long surf thundered on an unseen shingle 
 
 shore, 
 And between its measured pulse-beats you felt the 
 
 silence more ;
 
 60 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 And the awe of the shifting darkness wrought into 
 
 each straining sense 
 Till you heard your own heart beating in the stillness 
 
 of suspense. 
 
 Then eastward rose a glimmer as it might be, faint 
 
 and dim, 
 The first white touch of dawning over the ocean rim. 
 
 It was only the moon belated, but "Yonder," he said, 
 
 " comes day, 
 One last pull round the headland and Drake will 
 
 show the way ! " 
 
 There was hardly a light in Nombre but the lamp at 
 
 the haven head, 
 And away beyond at the landing-place where the 
 
 cresset fires shone red ; 
 
 So we stole in under the shadow at the edge of the 
 
 new sea-wall, 
 While the moon sailed up through a cloudy bank and 
 
 we heard the sentry call ;
 
 THE REPRISAL 61 
 
 There were ten men left in the launches, there were 
 
 threescore sprang to the land, 
 And we rushed to the fort at the haven mouth and 
 
 tumbled the guns in the sand ; 
 
 But the gunners dropped in the fosses and fled 
 through the night unhurt, 
 
 And they roused the sleepy watchmen, and the dark- 
 ness grew alert : 
 
 The great bell tolled from the belfry, it clanged with 
 
 an eerie stroke, 
 And rumour swelled to a stormy cry as the shuddering 
 
 city woke ; 
 
 For Drake had carried the market-place, and the 
 
 guards were full in flight 
 As I fell on their flank with Oxenham, and panic 
 
 screamed in the night, 
 
 We charged with a babel of horn and drum, we yelled 
 
 our rallying cry, 
 And the torches fixed on our ten-foot pikes blazed 
 
 into the murky sky.
 
 62 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 So we fought our way to the treasure-house, and the 
 
 guards fell back once more, 
 The bowmen kept them at bow-shot length while we 
 
 rammed through the iron door, 
 
 And we stared on an Empire's ransom in the torch- 
 light's glare, untold 
 
 Wedges of silver shoulder high and the Inca's virgin 
 gold. 
 
 There were gems imbedded in rough -hewn quartz 
 
 that caught the flickering gleam, 
 There were pearls to be had for the snatching, wealth 
 
 over our wildest dream ! 
 
 But the great Church bell of Nombre boomed on 
 
 with its call to arms, 
 And we heard their war-drums beating and the bugles' 
 
 shrill alarms, 
 
 We heard the rattle of musket fire where our boats 
 
 were left behind, 
 While clouds rolled over the moon again and a chill 
 
 struck into the wind ;
 
 THE REPRISAL 63 
 
 "They never must form to rally, back, lads, to the 
 
 market-place ! " 
 And lo ! as he sprang to lead us our captain fell on 
 
 his face : 
 
 Long since he had gotten a grisly wound, and his 
 
 strength had ebbed as it bled, 
 But our hearts stood still for a moment's space at the 
 
 thought he had fallen dead ; 
 
 For a sudden volley had struck the ground, and the 
 
 sand splashed into our eyes 
 As we staggered blind from the lightning-flash shot 
 
 over the purple skies : 
 
 Then the tropic rain burst o'er us, and our matchlock 
 
 fires were drenched, 
 Our bow-strings would not serve us, and the blazing 
 
 tow was quenched ; 
 
 We raised our wounded captain, and we bore him 
 
 back to the quay, 
 While he cursed us all for cravens " Will you lose 
 
 this chance ? " said he.
 
 64 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 But his men with a gentle violence had forced him 
 
 out of the strife, 
 For all the gold in the west, they said, was as naught 
 
 to their captain's life. 
 
 So the Spanish footmen rallied, and the streets grew 
 
 live with men, 
 And we fought with the pike and the musket-butt, 
 
 and we charged them one to ten. 
 
 We laid our wounded under the thwarts with the 
 
 spoil we had brought away, 
 And never a man was missing as we pushed out into 
 
 the bay. 
 
 We climbed on board of a seventy-ton, and we cut 
 
 the hawsers free, 
 We towed her out, and we hoisted sail, and made for 
 
 the open sea. 
 
 While day -dawn scowled through a sullen sky, and 
 
 ever our captain railed, 
 "Had I been quit of my wound," he said, "the 
 
 venture had not failed."
 
 THE REPRISAL 65 
 
 But we found good store on the captured ship of red 
 
 and of amber wines, 
 And our wounds were nigh forgotten when we came 
 
 to the isle of pines. 
 
 So Ranee took his share of the Nombre gold, and the 
 
 barque sailed home again, 
 And that was the first reprisal that we made in the 
 
 Spanish Main. 
 
 Then we sailed to Cartagena, and we ran right up the 
 
 port, 
 'Mid clanging of bells from the churches, and 
 
 thunder of guns from the fort ; 
 
 And the launches dashed through the musket fire, 
 
 and under the Governor's eyes 
 Laid hands on a Cadiz transport, and carried her out 
 
 a prize. 
 
 He sent the prisoners back to shore in their boats for 
 
 his good name's sake, 
 For there never was gentler pirate or kindlier foe than 
 
 Drake ;
 
 66 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 But he freed the slaves we had found on board at 
 
 work in collar and chain, 
 And thus we won to our service these the deadliest 
 
 foes of Spain. 
 
 It was first at Cartagena we were 'ware of the evil 
 
 news 
 That the men of the Holy Office had landed in Vera 
 
 Cruz. 
 
 They told us of our good comrades in the hands of a 
 
 ruthless foe, 
 The Judith's men and the Minion's that were left 
 
 three years ago ; 
 
 And they told us four great galleons had sailed in the 
 
 Pasha 's track 
 Because of the raid on Nombre, with an oath to bring 
 
 us back. 
 
 So we made as though we were eastward bound, and 
 
 scuttled the little Swan 
 On the rocks near Cartagena, and with nightfall we 
 
 were gone.
 
 THE REPRISAL 67 
 
 We were sore at heart for the brave little craft, but 
 
 our hands were all too few 
 To work one ship with the prizes and to man the 
 
 launches too. 
 
 So we turned and steered for a lonely bay, far out of 
 
 their mariners' ken, 
 He had found in a deep reef-sheltered blue elbow of 
 
 Darien : 
 
 Long creeks run up from its shelving shore to the 
 
 foot of the hills inland, 
 Where the rain-born torrents cleave a way through 
 
 the mud swamps and the sand ; 
 
 Where over the banks untrodden, in mist and in 
 
 fever-breath, 
 The silent mangrove forest broods on a world of 
 
 death ; 
 
 Their black stems rise from the waters, their thin bent 
 
 roots divide, 
 And clutch with uncanny fingers the drift of the 
 
 shifting tide ;
 
 68 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 We hid our ships in the gloomy creeks, with their 
 
 topmasts stowed away, 
 And we built us huts on the upland, with an outlook 
 
 over the bay. 
 
 It were long to tell of the raids we made from our 
 
 lair in Plenty Cove, 
 How we built a fort at the forest edge, and our every 
 
 venture throve ; 
 
 For thence the swift black launches would creep 
 
 through the island maze, 
 By the channels still uncharted to the edge of the 
 
 great highways, 
 
 They would board the coastwise traders becalmed 
 
 on the tropic nights, 
 They claimed sea-toll from the victualling ships and 
 
 fought in a hundred fights ; 
 
 But we paid the price of rashness, when at last on an 
 
 evil day 
 With a weary stroke and a bleeding crew the boats 
 
 crawled back to the bay
 
 THE REPRISAL 69 
 
 With the tale of a raid too well repelled, of the few 
 
 that were far too few, 
 With the mangled bodies of Captain John and my 
 
 foster-brother Drew. 
 
 We dug their graves in the alien world, as a sailor's 
 
 grave should be, 
 On a spur of the hill at the forest edge where it looks 
 
 to the open sea ; 
 
 And we mourned as you mourn for the first to fall, 
 and there stole on the brooding mind 
 
 A thought of the lights last Whitsun-Eve and of all 
 we had left behind. 
 
 Now the slaves we had freed and friended were gone 
 
 forth to the jungle folk, 
 The fierce black tribes of the Cimaroons with the 
 
 links of the chain we broke, 
 
 A symbol of peace and friendship, that their great 
 
 cacique might know 
 The men of the woods and the men of the sea were 
 
 at war with a common foe ;
 
 70 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 They were sprung, they claimed, from the mutineers 
 that had once been a galley's crew, 
 
 And a deadly hate of their lords of old was the only 
 law they knew ; 
 
 They had got them wives of the Indian folk, and 
 
 here on the free hillside, 
 In the tracking of game and the plunder of man, they 
 
 had thriven and multiplied. 
 
 So the chiefs came down to our camping ground, and 
 
 the tribe abode with us there, 
 And we learned the lore of their forest craft, and the 
 
 trick of the woodman's snare. 
 
 They told us priceless tidings, how the rains were 
 
 near at hand, 
 When the hill streams grew in the torrent beds and 
 
 travel is barred by land, 
 
 But so we would wait in our hiding-place till the dry 
 
 months came again, 
 When the plate stores cross from the southern sea to 
 
 the ports on the Spanish Main ; 

 
 THE REPRISAL 71 
 
 They would guide us over the jungle waste through 
 
 the crags by an unknown way 
 To the path of the laden mule-trains, and the road to 
 
 Nombre Bay. 
 
 So the rains came on in their season, and the hills 
 
 raced down to the seas, 
 And ever it poured on our cranky thatch, and it 
 
 dripped in the night of the trees ; 
 
 The weeks went by in a shadow of gloom till the 
 
 camp was a dismal fen, 
 Till the chill of the rain wrought into our souls, and 
 
 the heart died out of our men. 
 
 Then the gray skies broke and the sun pierced through, 
 but the white mist rose like a shroud 
 
 From the ooze and slime of the mangrove creek, and 
 death was abroad in the cloud. 
 
 And one by one in the fever camp our men dropped 
 
 down and died ; 
 There were twenty-and-nine of the seventy-three that 
 
 are laid there side by side ;
 
 72 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 Till we cursed the sea and the hoarded gold, and the 
 
 toil we had spent for its sake ; 
 But stronger than death, and the fear of death, was 
 
 the quenchless heart of Drake. 
 
 Though his youngest brother, the lad we loved, 
 dropped down in his strength and prime, 
 
 And I saw great tears in the stern blue eyes for the 
 first and only time, 
 
 Yet he came and went with a cheery smile, he sat by 
 
 each sick man's bed, 
 He nerved the doubting surgeons, and at night bore 
 
 out his dead. 
 
 We dug him a grave by Captain John at the head of 
 
 that line of mounds, 
 They will rise up first on the judgment dawn when 
 
 the last great muster sounds ; 
 
 They will call their lads to quarters, and my foster- 
 brother Drew 
 
 Will pipe on his boatswain's whistle that the men of 
 the Pasha knew,
 
 THE REPRISAL 73 
 
 And I pray the Lord have mercy, when the angel 
 
 reads the scrolls, 
 For the bitter death that they died out there, on those 
 
 poor seamen's souls. 
 
 For look you it is sweet and well in the day we come 
 
 to die, 
 To know familiar presences and kindred faces by ; 
 
 To watch from sheltering windows wide the happy 
 
 light that plays 
 On pleasant scenes that seem to soothe the ebbing of 
 
 our days ; 
 
 To see the shadows lengthening down the quiet fields 
 
 we knew, 
 And the farewell sunset purpling the distant hills of 
 
 blue; 
 
 While tender voices whisper near with gently bated 
 
 breath, 
 So softly in its season falls the kindly kiss of death.
 
 74 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 But it's ill to pass in the wilderness on the bed of 
 
 wattled reeds, 
 With only the swamp to cool the fire of the fever that 
 
 it breeds. 
 
 Yet they that march in England's van have such grim 
 
 death to face, 
 And alien suns shall bleach the skulls of our unquiet 
 
 race. 
 
 The desert wastes shall gather them, the red sand 
 
 choke their groans, 
 And every tide of all the seas roll up their restless 
 
 bones. 
 
 So there we endured and conquered, the evil drew 
 
 to an end, 
 The murmur hushed in his greater loss, and the sick 
 
 began to mend. 
 
 And yet we were hardly a score in all that were strong 
 
 to march and fight, 
 When the scouts brought news from Nombre of the 
 
 Plate fleet hove in sight ; 

 
 THE REPRISAL 75 
 
 But thirty men of the Cimaroons marched out with 
 
 their great cacique, 
 And they suffered us bear no burdens from the day 
 
 we left the creek. 
 
 We struck through the gloom of the forest, where the 
 
 dark arms tangle and cross, 
 And the weird dead trunks rot slowly under their pall 
 
 of moss, 
 
 Where there dwells eternal silence and never the sun- 
 light breaks 
 
 The roof that tents the twilight of a sleep where no 
 life wakes. 
 
 They found us a track where no track was, and we 
 
 crept on their noiseless trail 
 Through the steamy shade and the fungus slime to 
 
 the world of a fairy tale ; 
 
 We climbed the Cordilleras, up steps of the mountain 
 
 rills 
 That yet ran full with the overflow from the springs 
 
 in the heart of the hills ;
 
 76 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 We passed through untrodden valleys where the 
 
 shrubs had an odour of balm, 
 And the wild wood creatures dwelt unscared in the 
 
 old primeval calm ; 
 
 The sap of those trees ran white like milk, the wounds 
 
 in the bark ran blood, 
 The fruit hung luscious on every bough, and the ripe 
 
 fruit grew by the bud ; 
 
 The cotton blanched in a silky tuft, the bamboos 
 
 waved their flags, 
 The acacia pods were a sabre's length, and the wild 
 
 gourd clung to the crags. 
 
 We came to a break in the mountain chain at end 
 
 of a weary day, 
 A pass hewn deep in the great rock wall, and the late 
 
 moon rose that way ; 
 
 The upland hollow was dense with bush, and the 
 
 grass rose shoulder high, 
 There was nought to see for its forest ring but the 
 
 stars far up in the sky ;
 
 THE REPRISAL 77 
 
 And lone in the jungle clearing one monster ceiba 
 
 stood, 
 The last of a race of giants of the patriarchal wood ; 
 
 Its wide arms stretched to the rock's high crest, and 
 
 its branches bar on bar 
 Were the rungs of a mighty ladder that reached right 
 
 up to the star ; 
 
 The great lianes wound through them and drooped 
 
 to the earth again, 
 
 ' And myriad blooms of orchids had life from the 
 living chain ; 
 
 They pitched our camp in the mighty roots, and they 
 
 waved their hands on high, 
 And they said, "Climb up, Senores, for this is the 
 
 Mountain's Eye ! " 
 
 So Drake swung up through the creepers, and he 
 
 scaled the ancient tree, 
 And first of all living Englishmen had a sight of the 
 
 Golden Sea.
 
 78 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 Beneath him forests lay in gloom, dim gorges wound 
 
 between 
 White crags like billows cresting in the moonlight's 
 
 marble sheen. 
 
 Behind the vast Atlantic rolled, and widening glim- 
 mering west 
 
 The sister ocean rose and took the moon-kiss on her 
 breast. 
 
 He clambered down with a bursting heart, and fell on 
 
 his bended knee, 
 And awe came over us all who watched, and he said, 
 
 "Go up and see ! " 
 
 And I went aloft through the twisted coils, and 
 
 Oxenham climbed, and then 
 The mariners each went up in turn to the last of the 
 
 Pasha's men : 
 
 And the mystic secret was no more hid, and the 
 
 jealous lords of Spain 
 Had veiled the face of the virgin sea, and had barred 
 
 her gates in vain ! 

 
 THE REPRISAL 79 
 
 We stood ringed round together, bared heads by the 
 
 flickering fire, 
 We sang the "Nunc Dimittis," and Jack Basset led 
 
 the choir ; 
 
 And we swore the oath of a fellowship in the shade 
 
 of the ceiba tree, 
 We would never rest till an English keel had sailed 
 
 on the Golden Sea. 
 
 Then we dropped down the gorges, and we came on 
 
 the second day 
 To the meeting of roads in a mountain pass, and they 
 
 said, " There winds the way ! " 
 
 And we looked once more on the western sea, and 
 
 saw from the ridge afar 
 The fleets of the sister ocean in the roads of Panama. 
 
 The black folk sent their scouts to spy while the noon 
 
 was sultry yet, 
 And they saw the mule-trains gathered to march when 
 
 the sun should set.
 
 8o BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 So we chose a place in the level way and the narrow 
 
 strait of the pass, 
 Between the gates of the east and west, and hid in 
 
 the jungle grass ; 
 
 And there we had ease of our weariness as we lay by 
 
 twos and threes 
 Through the trance of the burning noontide in shadow 
 
 of rocks and trees. 
 
 They rolled us leaves of a priceless herb that grew in 
 
 their hill domain, 
 Whose fumes are better than meat and drink, a drug 
 
 to the heart and brain ; 
 
 And our limbs worn out with the mountain march 
 
 were soothed with a sweet relief 
 As our lips inhaled its fragrance, and our souls forgot 
 
 their grief. 
 
 Then the sun went down on the western sea, the stars 
 
 in the east grew bright, 
 And the fireflies lit their lanterns in the sudden tropic 
 
 night ;
 
 THE REPRISAL 81 
 
 And since the moon would be late to rise each man 
 
 drew on his shirt 
 Outside of his seaman's jersey, and we lay by our 
 
 arms alert. 
 
 There were twenty men in the ambush with the breast- 
 high grass for screen, 
 
 On either side of the mountain track, and a bow-shot's 
 length between. 
 
 The drowsy night air hummed with life, the forest 
 
 things gave tongue, 
 While measured on the throbbing pulse the minutes 
 
 dragged along. 
 
 Then far and faint on rustling breaths that seemed to 
 
 move in sleep, 
 We could hear the mule bells tinkle far down the 
 
 misty deep ; 
 
 And ever they mounted nearer, till we heard the hide- 
 whips crack, 
 
 Till the echoes rang with the jangling chime, and the 
 hoofs that slipped on the track,
 
 82 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 They hummed an air as they rode along, the guards 
 
 at the head of the line, 
 They rode right into the ambush, and then Drake 
 
 gave the sign ; 
 
 And the night was rent with a wild war-cry, the bolt 
 
 rang keen from the bow, 
 The black men sprang to the pack -mules' heads, 
 
 and we all dashed out on the foe. 
 
 The escort stood for one moment's space in the jungle 
 
 path at bay, 
 And then fled clattering madly back, or on to Nombre 
 
 Bay. 
 
 And we loosed the packs, and we lashed the mules 
 
 behind them left and right, 
 And headlong down the desperate paths they galloped 
 
 through the night. 
 
 But all the cost of our voyage was paid us a thousand- 
 fold 
 
 In the gems we took from the rifled packs and the 
 red Potosi gold ;
 
 THE REPRISAL 83 
 
 And as for the silver ingots that we had no hands 
 
 to bear, 
 We stuffed them into the crannied rocks and under 
 
 the tree-roots near. 
 
 Then we clambered up by the hill -stream's course, 
 
 though the way was dark to find, 
 Where our feet on the dripping boulders would leave 
 
 no trail behind. 
 
 We were far away on the mountain's crest before the 
 
 alarm had spread. 
 When dawn broke rosy wakening out of her ocean 
 
 bed; 
 
 For panic grew with the morning light, gave wings 
 
 to the evil news, 
 And they landed guns from the ships of war, and 
 
 they armed at Venta Cruz. 
 
 And still folks say that in Panama you may hear the 
 
 settlers tell 
 How the Dragon came in his devil-ship, and he made 
 
 a league with hell ;
 
 84 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 For their own guards saw the black fiends swarm 
 
 and gather at his call, 
 And they cross themselves as they tell the tale : 
 
 " From such God save us all ! " 
 
 But we went down by the pathless crags through the 
 
 thorn-brakes' tangled coil, 
 Where the face of the cliff was sheerest, bent under 
 
 the weight of spoil ; 
 
 And we came to the edge of the ocean at eve on the 
 
 second day, 
 Our hearts were glad for the salt waves' smell and 
 
 beat of the tossing spray, 
 
 We came to the gorge with its winding stream where 
 
 our trysting-place should be, 
 And there were our launches hidden in a sheltered 
 
 arm from the sea; 
 
 And there were our comrades waiting, grown hearty 
 
 and hale once more, 
 And wild at the sight of the treasure loads that our 
 
 black companions bore. 

 
 THE REPRISAL 85 
 
 We gave the chiefs to their hearts' desire of our arms 
 
 and stores and loot, 
 And we left them all the launches and a Spanish 
 
 prize to boot ; 
 
 And we got on board of our own good ship, made 
 
 trial of spar and mast, 
 Streamed all the silken pennants and shook sail out 
 
 at last. 
 
 We skirted Cartagena with the red cross at our main, 
 To fire one last defiance to King Philip and to Spain ; 
 
 And gaily through the tropic sea we ran before the 
 
 wind, 
 And left the name of Francis Drake and the fear of 
 
 God behind. 
 
 Oh sweetly rang the Sabbath bells across from shore 
 
 to shore 
 The merry August morning when we sighted home 
 
 once more ;
 
 86 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 We heard them ring to matins from Cawsand and the 
 
 Rame, 
 And sweetly up the off-shore wind the homely voices 
 
 came. 
 
 We thundered out our last salute to the Admiral of 
 
 the Port, 
 And old John Hawkins answered with the guns in 
 
 Plymouth fort. 
 
 And how the folks streamed out of church, and hurried 
 
 down the Hoe, 
 And left the parson preaching, all lads in Plymouth 
 
 know. 
 
 So there, my sons, the tale must end of what we did 
 
 afloat, 
 You must ask good Master Walsingham what Philip's 
 
 envoy wrote. 
 
 They say Mendoza still protests and long he may 
 
 in vain, 
 But Spain will pause before she breaks her solemn 
 
 bond again. 

 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 
 
 IT was summer now in the world they knew, mid June 
 
 and the month of mirth, 
 But Drake was stayed in the winter's grip on the 
 
 dreariest coast of earth. 
 
 They had sailed in a bleak November and assembled 
 
 in Mogador, 
 He had taken a prize of the Portingals and had set 
 
 her crew on shore : 
 
 He had made the Brazils in April and watered in 
 
 River Plate, 
 And now two months he had sought in vain for the 
 
 pass to Magellan's Strait.
 
 90 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 In fog and in heavy weather, through wildering sleet 
 
 and snow, 
 They had fought with the leaden waters in a track 
 
 where no ships go, 
 
 Where the storm wind howls with a human voice, 
 where the long swell flings its spray 
 
 Up cliffs where never a green leaf breaks the gloom 
 of the wintry gray ; 
 
 And still it blew from the frozen pole, and they beat 
 in the icy breath, 
 
 The Pelican and the Marygold and the barque Eliza- 
 beth. 
 
 The heart of his men was broken, and ever the discord 
 
 grew, 
 And a haunting dread of that unknown world crept 
 
 over his simple crew ; 
 
 Till they wrought with a grudging labour, till they 
 
 answered with sullen lips, 
 
 And the breath of a mutinous murmur went up from 
 the weary ships. 

 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 91 
 
 But the general watched and waited till the time 
 
 should be ripe for speech ; 
 Till the hidden evil had come to light, and the 
 
 sickness craved the leech. 
 
 They had won to an inlet isle-enclosed, by the reckon- 
 ing fifty south, 
 
 And the battered fleet put in at last through the reefs 
 that barred its mouth. 
 
 There were spars to be refitted, and the standing 
 
 gear was worn, 
 The hulls were foul from the long sea-way, and the 
 
 sails were frayed and torn. 
 
 There was never a ship sailed here but once, and now 
 
 it was fifty years 
 Since the great Magellan anchored and dealt with his 
 
 mutineers ; 
 
 There was never a trace of living thing in that arm 
 
 of the lonely sea, 
 But high on the cliff in the silent world stood the 
 
 frame of his gallows tree ;
 
 92 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 And there, clean picked of the vultures, and washed 
 
 by the driving rain, 
 The bones of a man swung to and fro held up in a 
 
 rusty chain. 
 
 They stared at the silent witness of the great sea- 
 captain's hand, 
 
 And the sense of an ill-foreboding came up from that 
 dismal strand. 
 
 Now once more here at this world's far end among the 
 
 boulders gray 
 Shall a court be called for judgment in bleak St. 
 
 Julian's Bay. 
 
 For at last the leech has probed the wound and the 
 
 bitter charge is framed, 
 Long -hidden things shall come to light and the 
 
 traitor's name be named. 
 
 So Drake has called his captains and the mates and 
 
 the volunteers, 
 And Master Thomas Doughty shall be tried before 
 
 his peers ; 

 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 93 
 
 As ran the law in England, so ran their law at sea, 
 Who stood within its danger might claim his due 
 degree. 
 
 The chaplain brought the book to kiss, and swore 
 
 them man by man, 
 And grimly that mid-winter morn the ocean court 
 
 began. 
 
 Then witness after witness rose, and they told the 
 
 sordid tale 
 Of all the arts the man had used to make the venture 
 
 fail; 
 
 Till the damning charge of his mutiny was established 
 
 to the hilt, 
 And that reluctant jury gave their verdict of his guilt. 
 
 But he, since Drake so humbled him, replied with 
 taunt and jest, 
 
 And by his own lips' railing stood a traitor self- 
 confessed ;
 
 94 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 There were those at home in England of the counter- 
 plot, said he, 
 
 Who knew the end of this fool's design long ere they 
 had put to sea : 
 
 King Philip had ambassadors to guard the rights of 
 
 Spain, 
 And when the watchman waketh the wolf will prowl 
 
 in vain. 
 
 Then the eyes of Drake grew cold and hard with the 
 
 glance it was ill to meet, 
 And he called the crews together to the least man in 
 
 the fleet ; 
 
 From first to last he had said no word till then for 
 
 good or ill 
 As he faced his wavering captains while his trumpet 
 
 blew the ' still.' 
 
 He stood erect in the midst of all with his drawn 
 
 sword in his hand 
 At the foot of Magellan's gallows by the edge of the 
 
 dreary land, 

 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 95 
 
 While the chill wind moaned in the gully and the 
 
 waves boomed far away 
 On the sunken reefs and the broken crags at the gate 
 
 of the wintry bay. 
 
 And he said : " My masters, hearken, friends old and 
 
 comrades new, 
 
 While I tell you all that my purpose holds and the 
 | thing we have sailed to do. 
 
 "There was no man questioned whither on the day 
 
 we set to sea, 
 I am used to be trusted all in all by the men that sail 
 
 with me ; 
 
 " But your discords, aye and your mutinies, have left 
 
 me nigh distraught, 
 I must have this left, my masters, though the price be 
 
 dearly bought ; 
 
 "I would have you know that the gentlemen shall 
 
 take their place with the crew, 
 Shall haul and draw with the seamen when their 
 
 captain bids them to ;
 
 96 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 " I will brook no more division I would know who 
 
 dares refuse. 
 God's life ! am I not your master ? I will break you 
 
 all if I choose ! 
 
 "Let the Pashds men stand forward, yon five that 
 
 were with me then, 
 When we looked across to the unknown side from 
 
 the tree in Darien. 
 
 " Do you mind my oath in the camp-fire light, how I 
 
 swore, God helping me, 
 I would sail a ship with an English flag through the 
 
 heart of the Golden Sea ! 
 
 " Since then five years have come and gone, and now, 
 so He hath willed, 
 
 The oath that I swore in Darien shall surely be ful- 
 filled. 
 
 "For it fell in the time appointed that the Queen, 
 
 whom God defend, 
 Had heard her subjects' bitter cry from Berwick to 
 
 Land's End :
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 97 
 
 "And since the Spanish King protests his arm may 
 
 not control 
 The Holy Office in his realm, which lie be on his 
 
 soul, 
 
 "Since in the councils of her peers she had found 
 
 small help or stay, 
 And still unchallenged at her feet the King's defiance 
 
 lay; 
 
 " So in her bitter need she turned from the grave and 
 
 proved, and wise, 
 And she called a poor sea-captain who had found 
 
 grace in her eyes. 
 
 " And thus it chanced upon a day, a year gone by and 
 
 more, 
 There came a summons to the court from the great 
 
 who guard her door. 
 
 " A hand put back the arras and beckoned round the 
 
 screen, 
 And I was kneeling at the feet of England's injured 
 
 Queen.
 
 98 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 " She stood against the oriel frame and looked me up 
 
 and down, 
 Who wondered how so frail a brow could bear so 
 
 great a crown : 
 
 '"And this is Captain Francis Drake, and that the 
 
 guilty head 
 My kinsman Philip long hath craved, and craveth 
 
 still,' she said. 
 
 " She won my heart with mild reproof with frowns 
 
 that died in smiles, 
 She learned the tale of all we did beyond the western 
 
 isles ; 
 
 "She hearkened and she never tired as I told it all 
 
 again, 
 How we stripped the mules at Nombre and scared 
 
 the Spanish Main : 
 
 " And then herself, with broken voice, she spake of 
 
 all her woes, 
 The peace proclaimed where no peace is, the bitter 
 
 cry that rose 

 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 99 
 
 " From cities where her merchant fleets lie idle by the 
 
 quays 
 With rotting sail and fouling keel debarred from half 
 
 the seas, 
 
 " From little havens in the cliffs, where their mothers 
 
 watch in vain 
 For the lads that the fever dungeons will never yield 
 
 again, 
 
 " From wretches maimed in torture cells, whose bodies 
 
 show the scar 
 Where peace has struck the craven stroke they had 
 
 never brooked in war, 
 
 " From those an alien judge hath doomed, and who 
 
 for conscience' sake 
 Were greater than their fear of death and English at 
 
 the stake, 
 
 " And womanlike she sighed and said, ' And is there 
 
 none to aid ? ' 
 And queenly with a burst of scorn, 'Are all but I 
 
 afraid?'
 
 ioo BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 "So there and then with halting breath, but all the 
 
 brain on fire, 
 I told our glorious Lady Liege of all my heart's desire. 
 
 " I told her of the great South Sea, the secret of our 
 
 foe, 
 Where unperceived of prying eyes his Plate -fleets 
 
 come and go, 
 
 " How there the sword he wields so well, the serried 
 
 pikes of Spain, 
 The guns that menace every sea are wrought for 
 
 England's bane, 
 
 " Where drowsy waves and laggard winds waft up to 
 
 Panama 
 The spoils of all the mines that sleep beneath the 
 
 summer star : 
 
 "And so the glorious scheme was planned to raid 
 
 the Golden Sea, 
 Now let me know who turns his back on England 
 
 and on me !
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 101 
 
 "Still southlier yet through seas unsailed Magellan 
 
 found the gate 
 Where the sister oceans meet and mix at war in the 
 
 stormy strait : 
 
 " And though it shall blow ten times as wild, though 
 
 the pass be blind with snow, 
 Though its whirlpools spin with the drifted ice, 
 
 where he went I will go ; 
 
 " Though the foul fiend have dominion there as the 
 
 seamen's fables say, 
 Though the devil in hell would hold me back, I 
 
 have sworn to find the way ; 
 
 " But when we have won to the farther side, to the 
 
 breeding seas of the seal, 
 We shall sail on the gentlest ocean that ever has rocked 
 
 a keel : 
 
 " For these crags that freeze on the eastward face 
 
 slope green to the western blue 
 And a land breeze gently northing bears up for rich 
 
 Peru.
 
 102 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 " There, where the treasure galleons ply secure from 
 
 all attack, 
 Drop down to Valparaiso and bring the bullion back, 
 
 " I look to find the ransom that will more than buy 
 
 again 
 The lives of all the English lads that rot to death in 
 
 Spain. 
 
 " Then when the lockers burst with gems, and when 
 
 the ballast hold 
 Of every ship in this my fleet is packed with bars of 
 
 gold, 
 
 " We'll trust the luck of the sun's wake still, and it's 
 
 Westward Ho once more, 
 And home, my lads, by an ocean-track ship never 
 
 has tried before ! 
 
 " Now if I have told you only here what but I and 
 
 my captains knew, 
 It was that I learned in Venta Cruz of the harm loose 
 
 tongues may do ;
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 103 
 
 " Therefore whoso hath no stomach to bear hand in 
 
 this emprise, 
 Hath welcome and leave to take his choice as it 
 
 seemeth best in his eyes ; 
 
 " Let him go aboard of the Marygold let him steer 
 
 for home this day, 
 But look to it whoso chooseth that he steer no other 
 
 way; 
 
 " For I swear to you as God liveth, wherever my bark 
 
 be blown, 
 I will sink his ship if I meet him, though he be of 
 
 my blood and bone." 
 
 It was Captain Philip Wynter first of the barque 
 
 Elizabeth 
 Stept forth and clasped the general's hand, and he 
 
 said, " For life and death ! " 
 
 And Thomas Moon the carpenter, the oldest hand at 
 
 sea, 
 Spake up and swore a grisly oath, " Lord do so unto 
 
 me,
 
 io 4 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 " If ever a skulk shall turn his back while I have a 
 
 head to break 
 On the spoiling of the Philistine and my Captain 
 
 Francis Drake ! " 
 
 And there rose from twice a hundred throats a mighty 
 
 English cheer, 
 That voice of hearts in unison the sea-queen loves to 
 
 hear. 
 
 And Doughty heard it far away where he paced the 
 
 lonely shore, 
 He heard and knew his doom was sealed but the 
 
 general spake once more ; 
 
 He said they were timid surgeons who were loth to 
 
 use the knife, 
 He spoke of their state endangered by their jealousies 
 
 and strife, 
 
 Of the rule of ocean broken with brawls and mean 
 
 affrays, 
 Of the slights put on the seamen, contentions, doubt, 
 
 dispraise ;
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 105 
 
 And all that smouldering discontent had rallied round 
 
 one name, 
 And the very hand he had trusted most was the hand 
 
 that fanned the flame ; 
 
 Gentle and brave he had deemed him of old, of pur- 
 pose steady and pure, 
 
 Master of manifold learning, venturous, strong to 
 endure ; 
 
 But for all the love he had borne him once, yet he 
 
 dared not be untrue 
 To the Queen's high expectation and the safety of his 
 
 crew, 
 
 And so since warnings naught availed, and the evil 
 
 might not mend, 
 He had called a court in judgment on his own 
 
 familiar friend : 
 
 And there they had heard from his lips confessed the 
 
 bond he had pledged to the foe, 
 The trust betrayed and the plot to bring this scheme 
 
 to its overthrow. 

 
 106 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 " Henceforth," he said, " the watchman wakes, the foe 
 
 has a thousand eyes, 
 And wealth and fame, or the gallows-tree, are the end 
 
 of this emprise : 
 
 " Let no man look for quarter, henceforth who sails 
 
 with Drake, 
 I warn him, if the voyage fail, his life will pay the 
 
 stake ; 
 
 " Henceforth we are bound on a venture that is well- 
 nigh past my wit, 
 
 We have set three kings by the ears, my lads, and we 
 needs must through with it ; 
 
 " Howbeit I trust that the galleons will cruise on our 
 
 trail in vain, 
 For we shall fare by the southern pass while they 
 
 watch by the western main : 
 
 " But there waits one doom for treason at sea as it is 
 
 on land, 
 Who deems his crime has been worthy death let him 
 
 hold forth his hand ! "
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 107 
 
 Then a murmur rose from the listening ranks, an 
 
 oath, and an angry cry, 
 And twice a hundred clenching fists condemned the 
 
 wretch to die. 
 
 The crowd fell back, the general passed to where 
 
 Doughty strode aloof 
 Henceforth in all his words and deeds might no man 
 
 find reproof; 
 
 He had played the stake for life or death as a gambler 
 
 throws the cast, 
 And so, like a gallant gentleman, he would bear him 
 
 to the last : 
 
 He heard his doom with fearless eyes, he doffed his 
 
 hat to say, 
 " My cause be with the Judge of hearts until that 
 
 latter day ! " 
 
 He craved no grace save such an end as his gentle 
 
 blood might bear, 
 To have his dues as a Christian man, and to shrive 
 
 his soul in prayer.
 
 io8 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 So it came to pass on the second day that the crews 
 
 were called ashore, 
 And they spread a banquet near the strand of the best 
 
 they had in store ; 
 
 And there, unseen in the chill gray dawn, high up on 
 
 a crest of rock, 
 In the face of Magellan's gallows-tree, Tom Moon set 
 
 up the block : 
 
 They dressed an altar near at hand with the red cross 
 
 banner spread, 
 Where the chaplain, stoled and surpliced, set on the 
 
 wine and bread : 
 
 And Drake and Thomas Doughty knelt down there 
 
 side by side, 
 In Nature's vast and awful shrine above the yellow 
 
 tide, 
 
 While Master Fletcher ministered and blessed the 
 
 bread and brake, 
 And gave the cup in brotherhood to Doughty and to 
 
 Drake. 

 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 109 
 
 And those rough souls were awed and cowed, while 
 
 moaned the rainy wind, 
 And the deep voice of ocean boomed its measured 
 
 chant behind. 
 
 Then the long quarrel reconciled each kissed the 
 
 other's cheek, 
 And held his hand for a little space, but no man 
 
 heard them speak. 
 
 So they passed to where the feast was spread in a 
 
 sheltered spot to lee, 
 They made good cheer together there, each after his 
 
 degree. 
 
 But Doughty filled a cup and cried a pledge in 
 
 Spanish wine, 
 " Here's luck in all your ventures, lads, and a better 
 
 end than mine ! " 
 
 And in a little while he rose, and with a courtier's 
 
 bow, 
 " With your good leave, my captain," he said, " I am 
 
 ready now."
 
 I io BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 They climbed the crest of broken hill to where the 
 
 block was set, 
 As men unmoved by craven fear, by passion or regret. 
 
 And Doughty passed along the ranks with a word to 
 
 each and all, 
 And as he knelt to try the block the rain began to 
 
 fall. 
 
 But Drake unclasped his seaman's cloak and spread it 
 
 on the ground, 
 And bared the sword his arm alone might wield in 
 
 honour bound ; 
 
 The shivering blade whirled round and fell cold, 
 
 cruel, swift and keen. 
 "So perish all her enemies!" said Drake; "God save 
 
 the Queen ! " 
 
 He spread his cloak about the corse, and raised the 
 
 severed head, 
 The shuddering crews drew slowly back and left him 
 
 with the dead :
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED m 
 
 And long he gazed in that pale face he shielded from 
 
 the rain, 
 Thereafter, saith the chronicle, Drake seldom smiled 
 
 again. 
 
 The grave is on that bleak foreshore, and the crime is 
 
 purged away, 
 But steadfast stands while England stands her ocean 
 
 law, "obey!" 
 
 ii 
 
 Yet many a week they lingered there till their craft 
 
 were fit for sea, 
 From stem to stern-post caulked and payed, for the 
 
 fierce fight yet to be : 
 
 And they double-braced the standing-gear, reshipped 
 
 their spars and stores, 
 And late in the wintry August took leave of those 
 
 barren shores. 
 
 It was noon on the third day after, they had sight of 
 
 the ocean gate 
 Where the long black wall of mountain is cleft by the 
 
 fabled strait,
 
 112 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 They saw the headlands break the swell, the great 
 
 walls yawning wide, 
 And up the foam of shoaling reefs a path of steely 
 
 tide; 
 
 Thereat he streamed his banners out, and as he passed 
 
 between 
 Drake struck his topsails on the bunt in homage to 
 
 the Queen ; 
 
 And since his bird of wilderness had met with fortune's 
 
 wind, 
 New named henceforth the Pelican shall sail the 
 
 Golden Hind. 
 
 Their track wound in through narrowing gulfs with 
 
 bastioned walls o'erbowed, 
 'Neath drifted snows on the dripping shelves and a tent 
 
 of inky cloud : 
 
 Fierce wind-flaws drave with an angry blast at the turns 
 
 of the winding way, 
 Bleak breaths that swept from the misted crags and 
 
 lashed the freezing spray ;
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 113 
 
 Wild currents raced through the twisting tides that 
 
 washed round wilderness isles, 
 And the shadow of night hung all day long in the deep 
 
 scarred rock defiles ; 
 
 And ever at even wandering fires showed glimmering 
 
 through the gloom, 
 While prisoned deep in the tunnelled caves they heard 
 
 the pent seas boom ; 
 
 There many a stout heart shook for dread that had 
 
 feared no earthly foe, 
 For the weird of night is an awesome thing in the 
 
 paths where seamen go. 
 
 There was never a creek they moored in but the 
 
 penguins ran in flocks 
 To stare at the strange intruders that climbed on their 
 
 nesting rocks ; 
 
 And at times the strait way broadened out till the 
 
 white mists hid the shore, 
 And they drifted on in a veil of fog till they heard the 
 
 breakers roar,
 
 U4 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 Then the lead would fly from the sounding-chains, and 
 
 the starboard line raced free, 
 While the larboard caught on a sunken edge of the 
 
 shoal they might not see : 
 
 They were fifteen days and fifteen nights in the throat 
 
 of the dismal strait, 
 And the shadow of death was near alway, but as yet 
 
 they could smile at fate, 
 
 For ever the eye of the master watched, and a master- 
 hand was laid 
 
 To sail and tiller and sounding gear, and a master- 
 voice obeyed ; 
 
 Till the dreary battle was all behind, and at last the 
 
 deed was done, 
 And the keel of an English ship ran out on the sea of 
 
 the setting sun. 
 
 They watched him drop to the ocean rim, and they 
 
 felt the old sea-spell 
 As with joy they beat to the open wave, and the long 
 
 south twilight fell. 

 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 115 
 
 But lo, when the dawn came gray with cloud there 
 
 was no more land on the lee, 
 And they met the tail of the western gale that is lord 
 
 in the southern sea ; 
 
 And a tempest rose such as never yet they had hoped 
 
 for heart to brave, 
 These men who had spent their whole hard lives at 
 
 the chance of the evil wave. 
 
 It flung them south and it drave them east, while the 
 
 mountain tides ran past 
 With death in the hiss of the breaking swell and death 
 
 in the boom of the blast ; 
 
 The sky pressed down on their bare mast poles as they 
 
 scudded before the wind, 
 As they climbed the seas and shuddered at the sheer 
 
 green gulfs behind ; 
 
 And swiftlier raced the following tide with the white 
 
 comb reared to whelm, 
 And they knew how nigh was the dread lee-shore, but 
 
 they dared not change the helm.
 
 Il6 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 The nights grew brief in that wintry world, but there 
 
 broke no friendly sun 
 Through the cumbered cloud and the drifting scud, 
 
 and the night and the day seemed one. 
 
 So ever they toiled at the creaking pumps and the 
 
 breach that the green seas made, 
 And ever they cried on the Lord of Storms, and their 
 
 hearts were unafraid. 
 
 Week after week at the tempest's will the Golden Hind 
 
 ran on, 
 Till the blast died down to a whispering breeze and a 
 
 clean sun rose and shone ; 
 
 And the albatross came wheeling to stare at their 
 
 ribboned sail 
 As he dropped from the calm of the upper sky in the 
 
 wake of the dying gale. 
 
 They rode alone in a lonely sea, it was months 
 
 before they knew 
 They would meet no more with their sister ships at 
 
 the tryst in far Peru,
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 117 
 
 For the great untraversed ocean had claimed its first- 
 fruit prey, 
 
 And never a sign from the Marygold shall be till the 
 judgment day ; 
 
 But Wynter ran with the warning wind back into the 
 
 sheltered strait, 
 And there three weeks he had lingered on, for the 
 
 storm would not abate ; 
 
 Till at last with a waning hope or will, grown weary of 
 
 fight and foam, 
 He turned his back on the venture and set swift sail 
 
 for home. 
 
 So the might of the waves was broken, and the might 
 
 of the sun shone forth, 
 And eastward stretched a broad sea-way, but the land 
 
 lay west and north ; 
 
 Till then they had deemed that the austral earth with 
 
 a long unbroken shore 
 Ran on to the Pole Antarctic, for such was the old 
 
 sea-lore ;
 
 Ii8 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 But here were the sperm whales spouting for joy that 
 
 the storm was done, 
 And the ice-floes sailing round them and the waves 
 
 blue under the sun. 
 
 The sick men crept from their reeking bunks, and 
 
 climbed to the decks again, 
 To see where the sister oceans met to the south of 
 
 the gloomy main ; 
 
 And they hailed that storm for the wind of God, 
 for the might of its blast had borne 
 
 The Hind on her path of glory a sea-league past the 
 Horn. 
 
 They steered for the shadowy land they saw low 
 
 under the northern sky, 
 To an isle unveiled by the lifting cloud, and they 
 
 found good haven nigh : 
 
 They laughed and sang as they scaled the cliffs, and 
 
 the New World rang with mirth, 
 And they stretched glad arms to heaven on the 
 
 southermost earth on earth.
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 119 
 
 Thenceforth since proved by every test their stubborn 
 
 faith prevailed, 
 Since earth and sky and ocean had spent their might 
 
 and failed, 
 
 The Hand that binds the hurricane and holds the 
 
 winds in fee 
 Made fair and smooth the untried ways across the 
 
 promised sea. 
 
 Beyond the gloom of ice -scarred cliffs that bound 
 
 that austral land 
 The coast trends north two thousand miles through 
 
 plains of yellow sand. 
 
 But they saw dark-shadowing far inland the sudden 
 
 Andes rise 
 With bleak and barren flanks that turn towards the 
 
 sunset skies : 
 
 For bounteous earth looks eastward there, and from 
 
 her snow-capped crests 
 Great rivers flow to meet the dawn among her fruitful 
 
 breasts.
 
 120 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 But rarely some lone mountain tarn spills westward 
 
 down the chain 
 A stream that feeds its borderlands of garden in the 
 
 plain ; 
 
 So the ports where ships may enter are few and far 
 
 between, 
 Where some such silver thread winds down to make 
 
 the desert green. 
 
 f 
 They watched the snows of Andes slide past beneath 
 
 the moon, 
 And felt the summer's breath once more blow down 
 
 the mellow noon ; 
 
 The eager zest of life came back, they drank a glorious 
 
 air, 
 Forgot the toil of weary months and winter's long 
 
 despair. 
 
 It was a fair November eve in Valparaiso Bay, 
 Where all aboard made taut for sea the treasure- 
 galleon lay.
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 121 
 
 The crew were lounging o'er her sides to watch the 
 
 setting sun, 
 And sweetly fell the end of day to men whose work 
 
 was done. 
 
 A lazy mist hung o'er the stream and veiled the hills 
 
 in blue, 
 And up the lime -washed belfry tower the rose of 
 
 evening grew. 
 
 The ripple from the river ran a sheet of quivered 
 
 flame, 
 And softly on the dropping breeze the bell's low 
 
 tinkle came ; 
 
 When round the distant headland a dark sail hove 
 
 in sight, 
 A gallant bark stood up the bay, and swiftly fell the 
 
 night. 
 
 An hour more and the last red glow on ocean's 
 
 margin waned, 
 And through the pale star-clusters the queen moon 
 
 rose and reigned.
 
 122 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 The Spaniards broached a cask of wine, the crew 
 
 stood by to greet 
 The ship come in from Panama with tidings from 
 
 the fleet. 
 
 A boat has left the stranger craft, they hailed, and 
 
 one replied, 
 And a score of sturdy Devon lads have swarmed the 
 
 galleon's side ; 
 
 A sudden rush has cleared the decks, and up swarmed 
 
 twenty more, 
 And the galleon's crew are overboard and striking out 
 
 for shore ; 
 
 But her pilot hailed them friends, not foes, a Greek 
 
 long years impressed, 
 An eager guide to steer the Hind along the unknown 
 
 west. 
 
 Oh never draught of wine hath seemed so sweet to 
 
 parching mouth 
 As that first cup they pledged on board the Captain 
 
 of the South!
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 123 
 
 A panic seized the little port, the townsfolk fled 
 
 inland, 
 And left their stores of Chili wine and all good things 
 
 to hand. 
 
 So three days more Drake lingered here and stocked 
 
 the ship afresh, 
 They had lived too long on melted snow and the 
 
 bitter penguin flesh ; 
 
 And the scurvy-stricken wretches laughed out for very 
 
 mirth 
 As they culled the fruits they craved for and blessed 
 
 the mother earth. 
 
 Then wind and current bore them north along the 
 
 yellow main, 
 And the sound of fife and hautboy was heard on 
 
 board again ; 
 
 For keen as lads let loose from school, with reckless 
 
 jest and boast 
 They raided every bight and bay that frets the silver 
 
 coast.
 
 I2 4 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 And ere they left Arica's quays with all her ingots 
 
 stored, 
 There was half-a-million ducats' worth of silver bars 
 
 on board. 
 
 In splendid scorn of circumstance, with desperate odds 
 
 to face, 
 They sailed those first intruders of our adventurous 
 
 race; 
 
 To-day a wiser, wearier world will brand them 
 
 buccaneers ; 
 They did not doubt their cause was just in those 
 
 distracted years. 
 
 In a little while all England's isle, like them, shall gird 
 
 for fray. 
 The first who battle with the strong must use what 
 
 arms they may. 
 
 But still no tidings came to hand of Wynter and his 
 
 crew, 
 So they bore away for Lima and the spoils of rich 
 
 Peru.
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 125 
 
 For every bark they had overhauled confirmed their 
 
 pilot's tale, 
 That the richest prize in all those seas lay there and 
 
 due to sail. 
 
 So they left the Captain of the South without a crew 
 
 to drift, 
 Henceforth the Hind must sail alone, for the race is to 
 
 the swift : 
 
 And fleeter than the tidings ran from shores their 
 
 advent scared, 
 They sailed beyond their ill-renown and found men 
 
 unprepared. 
 
 So they lay hove-to a sea-league off, and then with 
 
 never a light 
 Ran up Callao di Lima in the dead of a murky night. 
 
 But the giant Cacafuego had sailed ten days before, 
 Deep laden to the water-line with all Potosi's ore ;
 
 126 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 And while they ransacked empty hulls a wild alarum 
 
 broke 
 From clamouring bells and signal-guns, and startled 
 
 Lima woke ; 
 
 Red torches flitted through the gloom, men mustered 
 
 on the quay, 
 And Drake must cut his cable-tow and hurry out to 
 
 But the light night breeze died down with dawn, and 
 
 there the rovers lay 
 With flapping sails struck motionless a short sea-league 
 
 away ; 
 
 While rumour rode with panic spur, their one ship 
 
 grew to ten, 
 And the Viceroy of Peru marched down with twice 
 
 a thousand men. 
 
 He has manned and armed four galleons, with the 
 
 charge to take or burn 
 The dragon in his devil-ship, or nevermore return.
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 127 
 
 But still across a cloudless sky the slow sun climbed 
 
 and crept, 
 While like a sheet of milky glass the breathless ocean 
 
 slept; 
 
 And morn and morrow's morning dawned, and still 
 
 like a drowsy spell 
 On land and water, friend and foe, the trance of 
 
 nature fell. 
 
 And now the watchers on the Hind beheld from those 
 
 clear shores 
 Two galleys move like living things on hundred-footed 
 
 oars; 
 
 They heard their pulsing measured thud far off across 
 
 the calm 
 As they cleared their deck for action and sang the 
 
 battle psalm. 
 
 The general's cold blue eye surveyed the narrowing 
 
 space between, 
 " Now, lads," cried he, " to play the man, for God and 
 
 for the Queen ! "
 
 128 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 But ere the answering cheer died down a dark flaw 
 
 crimped the seas, 
 The ripple rattled on the stem, they sniffed the coming 
 
 breeze : 
 
 The white sails filled, the good ship heeled, the merry 
 
 land-wind blew, 
 And as a scared swan skims the lake she shook her 
 
 wings and flew. 
 
 And now to crowd all canvas on and dog the Spitfire's 
 
 wake, 
 There sails no craft of Panama shall show clean heels 
 
 to Drake. 
 
 They tracked her north from port to port, they never 
 
 lost the trace, 
 Eight hundred weary miles of sea, and yet she baffled 
 
 chase. 
 
 She had lingered in Truxillo to load more treasure 
 
 still, 
 She had watered at Paita, she had touched at 
 
 Guayaquil.
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 129 
 
 It was hard on the Line on the first of March when 
 
 the morning broke at last, 
 They were 'ware of her square-rig far away, and they 
 
 knew that they held her fast. 
 
 So they shortened sail in the Golden Hind to wait till 
 
 the end of day, 
 And they trailed great casks and breakers at her stern 
 
 to check the way. 
 
 The sun was dropping down the west as they cut her 
 
 fetters free, 
 And like a greyhound slipped from leash she bounded 
 
 through the sea : 
 
 They hauled the chase as twilight fell one flight of 
 
 arrows flew, 
 One broadside brought the mainyard down, and the 
 
 giant ship hove to. 
 
 Night strode across the heaving deep, night and the 
 
 unknown foe, 
 And the richest prize that ever sailed has struck 
 
 without a blow.
 
 130 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 Her captain sits at meat with Drake, a sore unwilling 
 
 guest, 
 And prize and captor side by side have set their 
 
 courses west. 
 
 Far off in ocean's solitude, secure from all pursuit, 
 They overhauled the priceless freight and they found 
 an empire's loot : 
 
 There were thirteen chests of minted coin, there were 
 
 pearls and gems untold, 
 And all the ballast under decks was silver bars and 
 
 gold. 
 
 The admiral of the treasure fleets at Nombre waits in 
 
 vain, 
 For not one ounce of all that gold shall find its way 
 
 to Spain. 
 
 The cruisers sent from Lima long since had cried 
 
 despair, 
 The Dragon came they knew not whence, and was 
 
 gone they knew not where.
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 131 
 
 So all the coast rose up in arms, and, as the panic 
 
 grew, 
 The great ship came to Panama, a long month 
 
 overdue ; 
 
 They had met, they said, with a corsair, whose like 
 
 there was none on earth, 
 For the men at arms who served him were of England's 
 
 gentlest birth ; 
 
 (-0 
 There was never a crew so ordered, so quick to the 
 captain's call, 
 
 He lived like a prince in his state on board, and his 
 will was a law for all. 
 
 They had brought a letter signed and sealed with a 
 
 haughty word from Drake, 
 And the king's vice-regent gnashed his teeth as he 
 
 read for anger's sake ; 
 
 " There be English seamen here," he wrote, " of my 
 
 own old fellowship, 
 Whose limbs are chained to your galley bench, and 
 
 red from the driver's whip, 

 
 132 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 " Henceforth I bid you give good heed that they 
 
 come to no more harm, 
 Or I'll hang me a thousand Spaniards at the Golden 
 
 Hinds yard-arm." 
 
 So frigates with despatches sailed post haste from 
 
 Venta Cruz, 
 And soon Madrid and Lisbon rang with this disastrous 
 
 news ; 
 
 Then Sarmiento put to sea to block Magellan's Strait, 
 And Philip's envoy found the Queen no novice in 
 debate ; 
 
 Once more El Draque had dared transgress the sea's 
 
 forbidden bar, 
 Had set the bulls of Rome at naught, perplexing 
 
 peace with war ; 
 
 His liege of Spain would learn forthwith whose flag 
 
 these corsairs fly ! 
 Not Cecil, but the Queen herself, returned the proud 
 
 reply ; 

 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 133 
 
 " For proven wrong waits due redress ; but ill-timed 
 
 comes your plea 
 When hireling bravos land and league with Desmond's 
 
 Irishry : 
 
 " When all the claims myself have urged for wrongs 
 
 to be redressed, 
 Still wait my kinsman's courtesy to be answered 
 
 for the rest, 
 
 " I have yet to learn what papal bulls run west of 
 
 Finisterre 
 To bar my people's birthright in ocean, earth, and 
 
 air ! " 
 
 And thus the war of words ran high with claim and 
 
 counterclaim, 
 And weeks and months rolled on for years but of 
 
 Drake no tidings came. 
 
 v 
 Three thousand miles to the frozen north on a track 
 
 untried of man, 
 They had sought for the fabled outlet of the Straits 
 
 of Anian ;
 
 134 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 As many a stout heart yet shall sail in the years that 
 
 are to be, 
 On the phantom quest of the drift north-west, through 
 
 the heart of the iceberg sea. 
 
 But ever they beat in the teeth of storms, half blind 
 
 with the threshing hail, 
 While the spray froze fast on gear and mast and 
 
 starched their fretting sail ; 
 
 They came to the edge of a mountain world, where 
 
 clouds hung heavy and low 
 On the gloom of the great fir forests, black under the 
 
 crowning snow : 
 
 The sparkle died from the merry sea, and the fogs lay 
 
 dank and thick 
 On the wan unfriendly waters, and half of his men 
 
 fell sick. 
 
 But the trend of the land lay westward still, and icier 
 
 struck the blast, 
 The work of three grew a toil for six, and they gave up 
 
 hope at last.
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 135 
 
 So the Hind ran south with the wind in her wake till 
 
 they chanced on a kindlier land, 
 And they set up forge and workshop, and they beached 
 
 her on the strand. 
 
 The gentle tribes of the Indian folk came down to 
 
 their camp unscared, 
 On a shore that the Old World's lust for gold or 
 
 hunger of earth had spared : 
 
 They hailed them welcome, they brought them gifts, in 
 
 wonder and love and awe, 
 And bowed at the feet of the great white gods who 
 
 were come to give them law ; 
 
 They brought the wand of their chief of chiefs to set 
 
 in the general's hand, 
 And with mystic rights proclaimed him the lord of 
 
 the Indian's land. 
 
 So the English went to their upland towns, for the 
 
 fringe of the hills was near, 
 Looked over the boundless pasture world and the 
 
 untold herds of deer ;
 
 136 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 The dust of that earth was agleam with gold, the 
 
 skirt of the slopes was rare 
 With the tender growth of a northern clime, and 
 
 spring was quick in the air. 
 
 There was many a lad was tempted then begged 
 
 hard to be left behind, 
 For they said, "We have wandered two full years at 
 
 the chance of the fickle wind. 
 
 " So long we roam, and it's far to home, and weary of 
 
 fight are we," 
 But the captain frowned in silence as he led them 
 
 down to the sea. 
 
 He piled a cairn on the cliffs' high crest with a graven 
 
 plate thereon, 
 And Her Grace's name writ large to mark when her 
 
 latest realm was won ; 
 
 He called that land New Albion, with a tender thought 
 
 for home, 
 As they bade farewell to the gleaming rocks that 
 
 rose through the whiter foam ;
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 137 
 
 The wild folk watched with wondering eyes, the 
 
 women crooned low wails, 
 For the fair white gods went seaward and the Hind 
 
 shook out her sails. 
 
 But the sea-queen's brood shall come once more to 
 that shore where the white cliffs are, 
 
 When the sons of their children's children have 
 followed the evening star ; 
 
 Their bounds shall be either ocean, for the same 
 
 divine unrest 
 Shall drive their teeming millions to seek new fortunes 
 
 west; 
 
 And a great sea-city havened here shall leap to sudden 
 
 fame, 
 Re-echoing in an alien speech the great sea-captain's 
 
 name. 
 
 He laid his course by the Spaniard's chart, " For we'll 
 
 trust to the open sea, 
 And it's Westward Ho till the home-wind blows, as it 
 
 was from the start, " said he.
 
 138 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 " We are half-way round the world, my lads, and it's 
 
 half-way round once more, 
 Till we've ploughed a track on the ocean's back that 
 
 never was ploughed before. " 
 
 So they dropped to the edge of the North-East Trade, 
 
 and they ran west sixty days, 
 With never a sight of shore or sail in the infinite 
 
 ocean ways ; 
 
 And the mariner's boy through the long night-watch 
 
 would brood on his heart's desire, 
 While the strange stars played with the dancing yards 
 
 and the wake ran blue with fire ; 
 
 For the craving came that the wanderer knows for the 
 
 lilt of his own folk's speech, 
 For the damp moss scents in the ancient grass and 
 
 the shade of elm and beech, 
 
 For the rook's loud call in the twilight fall and the 
 
 thin blue smoke that weaves, 
 The veil of mist on the red farm roof and the gold of 
 
 the autumn leaves.
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 139 
 
 But weary wide were those seas untried, and little avail 
 
 to sigh 
 For the home stars in their places and the old 
 
 familiar sky. 
 
 Light lie the snows on byre and thatch, and windless 
 
 fall the rain, 
 Deal gently with them, summer sun, till we get back 
 
 again ! 
 
 And at last they came to a mid-sea isle, and a cluster 
 
 of isles beyond 
 Swam up through the white mirage of dawn as if by a 
 
 fairy's wand ; 
 
 Up rose the sun, the long low swell slid landward 
 
 flushed with day, 
 And the golden message climbed the brows of an 
 
 upland far away ; 
 
 The flighting sea-birds overhead went clanging through 
 
 the sky, 
 But the ripple showed the white reef's edge, and they 
 
 dared not venture nigh.
 
 140 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 So they left the clustering isles to dream through their 
 
 drowsy moons and noons, 
 Safe walled in the coral girdles that glass their still 
 
 lagoons ; 
 
 And they bore away for the Line once more till a 
 
 fairway broadened free, 
 Where the perfume -laden breezes blow through the 
 
 blue Molucca sea. 
 
 The bloom of the clove was harvested as they lingered 
 
 to explore 
 
 The garden ways of the ocean realms of Ternate and 
 , Tidore; 
 
 And they beached the Hind in a lonely isle where 
 
 foot never yet, maybe, 
 Had stirred the sand of the shell-strewn strand since 
 
 the isles came up from the sea. 
 
 All over its hills gigantic, weird, the silent forest grew, 
 With tapered stems to the tented roof that never a 
 sun looked through >
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 141 
 
 And even at midmost noon was gloom in the branchless 
 
 colonnade, 
 Where the bats and the flying foxes were lords of the 
 
 twilight shade, 
 
 Where great land -crabs in the twisting roots stared 
 
 out of their towering eyes, 
 And night was quick with the shifting light of the 
 
 myriad phosphor flies. 
 
 So there they abode for a month intrenched with the 
 
 bullion stacked on shore, 
 Till trimmed and taut for her long run home, she slid 
 
 to the deep once more. 
 
 Then west and south through the infinite isles, through 
 
 treacherous reefs that hide, 
 Where the dead volcanoes cumber the drift of the 
 
 parcelled tide ; 
 
 They were bound for the Sunda Channel, for the 
 
 chart gave free-way there, 
 They were two days out from Celebes, and the topsail 
 
 wind blew fair ;
 
 142 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 There was never a sign on the false sea's face as she 
 
 struck with a grinding shock, 
 As the keel ploughed through and the ship held fast 
 
 in the crust of a sunken rock ; 
 
 Oh many a time these two years back they had fought 
 
 with the ague breath 
 That chills the heart of the bravest man when he looks 
 
 in the face of death j 
 
 But not in their mad race past the Horn, nor the jaws 
 
 of the fearsome strait, 
 Not yet at the hand of God or man had they stood so 
 
 near their fate. 
 
 And then, as ever in direst need, they bent the 
 
 stubborn knee, 
 And said the brief and earnest prayer to the God who 
 
 made the sea. 
 
 It was all deep water round the Hind, and the warps 
 
 could find no stay, 
 And fast at the chance of a freshening breeze and 
 
 a rising swell they lay ;
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 143 
 
 So they rolled the great guns overboard, and the 
 
 spoils of rich Peru, 
 The shimmering ingots one by one went diving down 
 
 the blue. 
 
 No craven panic blanched their cheeks though the 
 
 good ship never stirred, 
 The ocean drill was perfect now, one voice alone 
 
 demurred : 
 
 What ailed you, Master Fletcher, there, brave heart in 
 
 all beside, 
 To prate about the hand of God, and the death that 
 
 Doughty died ? 
 
 The little captain turned in wrath and flung him on 
 
 the deck, 
 Set both his ankles in the stocks, and a posy round 
 
 his neck, 
 
 "Lo here sits Parson Fletcher, the falsest knave 
 
 alive ! " 
 "For till her timbers part," said he, "I'll have no 
 
 croaker thrive."
 
 144 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 And so the weary day went down, and up the full 
 
 moon sailed, 
 The broken waters tinkled by, and nought their toil 
 
 availed ; 
 
 But tired and spent and sick at heart they watched 
 
 the watches through : 
 "We are in the hand of God," said he; "we have 
 
 done what men may do." 
 
 And lo, the hand was stretched to save ; as it drew 
 
 towards the day 
 The breeze that held her broadside up grew slacker, 
 
 died away ; 
 
 She heeled towards the deep once more, and so with 
 
 never a strain, 
 By the mercy of God, as the morning broke, slid back 
 
 to her own again. 
 
 Now, drawers, bring the Alicant of which we robbed 
 
 the Don ! 
 Go loose the parson from the stocks, and get his 
 
 surplice on !
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 145 
 
 The leadsmen to the chains again, for Drake's 
 
 triumphant star 
 Shall guide us through the Flores Sea and past the 
 
 eastern bar ! 
 
 So on by treacherous reef and shoal, by cape and 
 
 channel and sound, 
 They groped their way through the island belt that 
 
 girds the South Sea round ; 
 
 Behind them sank the shadowy shores, and they came 
 
 on the ocean swell 
 Where the great tides heave untrammelled, and they 
 
 knew that all was well. 
 
 VI 
 
 Now it fell one morn of the after-year there was stir 
 
 in Plymouth fort, 
 And the guard turned out as the daylight broke to 
 
 the Admiral of the Port, 
 
 For the watch on the Rame had sent him word of a 
 
 warship hove in sight 
 That beat in the teeth of the keen north-east at fall 
 
 of the autumn night ; 
 L
 
 146 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 He searched the dawn with his keen sea eyes, for 
 there sailed neither Dutch nor Don, 
 
 But veiled his tops to the English flag in the days of 
 Admiral John. 
 
 And need was then for wary eyes, for the news was 
 
 fresh to hand 
 Of galleons off the Irish coast with companies to land. 
 
 The white mist rose, a bare mile off she stood in over 
 
 the bay, 
 And she bore her topsails proudly as one that had 
 
 right of way : 
 
 " If ever the dead came back to life," it was old John 
 
 Hawkins spake, 
 " I had sworn to that rig in a thousand ships for my 
 
 kinsman's Frankie Drake." 
 
 And e'en as he spake the red cross flag shook out 
 
 from her taper mast, 
 A thunder of guns broke right and left and the Hind 
 
 was home at last I
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 147 
 
 Her beardless boys were seasoned men with necks 
 
 set firm, and face 
 Tanned ruddy by the winds and suns that shape the 
 
 sea-born race ; 
 
 Her fluttering sails were patched and frayed, her 
 
 bulwarks all a wreck, 
 The pitch ran through her open seams and stained 
 
 her splintered deck ; 
 
 Her painted prow was rusty brown with the crust of 
 
 alien seas, 
 And half her ports were blind of the -guns she had 
 
 dropped in Celebes : 
 
 But every hand was up on deck or aloft on mast and 
 
 spar 
 To cheer the dropping anchor down behind the 
 
 harbour bar. 
 
 Oh golden spread the Edgcumbe woods and purpling 
 leaned the down, 
 
 And lingering wreaths of yellow furze lit up the moor- 
 land crown ,
 
 I 4 8 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 The world of home lay passing fair beyond the weary 
 
 seas, 
 As all the bells began to ring and the folk ran down 
 
 the quays. 
 
 From house to house, from street to street, the news 
 
 ran far and wide, 
 To Dart and Tamar, east and west, and up the 
 
 country-side. 
 
 The dead had all been duly mourned long since, 
 
 time out of mind, 
 There was only clasp of welcome hands and mirth on 
 
 board the Hind ; 
 
 VII 
 
 They have brought the Hind to Deptford town, they 
 
 have moored her by the quay, 
 A bridge of plank athwart her waist, she will go no 
 
 more to sea. 
 
 But pilgrims come from far and near and climb her 
 
 poop in pride, 
 And many a barge from Tower steps drops down 
 
 there on the tide ;
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 149 
 
 There's not a 'prentice in the Fleet but has felt a 
 
 sailor born 
 The day he saw the famous ship that found and 
 
 named the Horn ; 
 
 And scholars learned in the lore of great adventures 
 
 past 
 Have turned conceits and epigrams to hang about her 
 
 mast. 
 
 While Drake's tall lads, in silk and stuff, went swag- 
 gering up and down, 
 
 With tales that turned the staidest heads, and ale ran 
 free in town. 
 
 But now the windows all are wide, there are flags in 
 
 every street, 
 For the Queen herself has come to-day to sit with 
 
 Drake at meat. 
 
 The Golden Hind's great ordnance has fired the last 
 
 salute, 
 The crew are marshalled on the poop with drum and 
 
 fife and flute ; 

 
 ISO BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 The board is spread between the decks among the 
 
 brazen guns, 
 For to-day the great Queen honours the bravest of her 
 
 The captain of her guard was there in doublet slashed 
 
 and pearled, 
 For Hatton's was the proud device they had carried 
 
 round the world : 
 
 And subtle Master Walsingham with the long thin 
 
 nervous hands, 
 Who knew the minds and manners of many folk and 
 
 lands ; 
 
 And there was Martin Frobisher, the pilot of the Pole, 
 And Grenville, than whom England held no knightlier 
 sailor soul. 
 
 There sat Sir Humphry Gilbert, the untimely lost, 
 not yet 
 
 In the vengeful night of ocean scorned his storm- 
 tossed star had set ;
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 151 
 
 And Walter Raleigh new to court, and flushed with 
 
 fortune's smile, 
 The travelled Earl of Cumberland and Christopher 
 
 Carlile ; 
 
 With Sanderson, the man of maps, who drew the first 
 
 sea-card, 
 And Osborne, Mayor of London town, and the elders 
 
 of his ward, 
 
 Whose merchant fleets shall sail henceforth un- 
 trammelled east or west ; 
 
 And they spoke of deeds adventurous and all the 
 world's unrest. 
 
 So went she forth accompanied, that unforgotten day 
 She flung the Spaniard's challenge back, defiant ; 
 these were they 
 
 Who first dared dream and dreaming dared while all 
 
 was yet to do, 
 To roll the bounds of empire back beyond the bounds 
 
 they knew ;
 
 152 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 To bind the winds their bondsmen, and hold the tide 
 
 their slave, 
 And claim for island England dominion o'er the wave. 
 
 "Now hearken, lords and gentlemen, we have heard 
 
 to-day," said she, 
 " Of the world beyond the sunset and the sea beyond 
 
 the sea, 
 
 " But of piracies and plunderings, of trespass, raid, 
 
 and wrong, 
 Of this we learned from Philip's self, and the tale is 
 
 passing long ; 
 
 " And still my kinsman claims to know whose flag this 
 
 bark hath flown 
 Which Master Drake hath dared maintain through 
 
 seas he claims his own. 
 
 " Now therefore to such questionings let this my 
 
 answer be, 
 Down, truant rover, down, and crave my pardon on 
 
 your knee ! "
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 153 
 
 Then he who fear had never known stood blanched 
 
 before her seat, 
 Ungirt his sword and bowed and knelt to lay it at her 
 
 feet. 
 
 And roundly there she rated him, and looked him up 
 
 and down, 
 With eyes that knew a true man's worth, and smiled 
 
 away their frown. 
 
 She bared his blade, she rose a queen, a queen to 
 
 mar or make 
 "My little pirate, rise," she cried, "and be Sir 
 
 Francis Drake ! "
 
 MISCELLANEOUS
 
 THE BALLAD OF RICHARD PEAKE 
 
 "A good ship I know, and a poor cabin ; and the language 
 of a cannon : and therefore as my breeding has been rough, 
 scorning delicacy, so must my writings be, proceeding from 
 fingers fitter for the pike than the pen." PEAKE'S Narrative. 
 
 THIS is the tale of Richard Peake, 
 
 Of Tavistock in Devon, 
 And the fight he fought in Xeres town, 
 
 God rest his soul in Heaven ! 
 
 I know each pool of Dart and Exe 
 
 Where trout or grayling hide, 
 I know the moors from sea to sea 
 
 And where the red-deer bide ; 
 I know a tall ship stem to stern 
 
 What sail to set or strike, 
 I know to point a culverin 
 
 And how to thrust a pike.
 
 158 THE BALLAD OF RICHARD PEAKE 
 
 I know the star-way through the night 
 
 And the bodings in the skies, 
 But many a man knows more than I 
 
 That is not wondrous wise. 
 I cannot turn a silken phrase, 
 
 Nor make a sonnet sing ; 
 Yet must I write my chronicle 
 
 For my good Lord the King. 
 A western man and lowly born, 
 
 And early sent to sea, 
 So simple as my breeding was, 
 
 Let this my record be. 
 
 Ye have heard my Lord of Essex 
 
 How he sailed to Cadiz Bay, 
 With all King Charles' men of war 
 
 Upon a Saturday. 
 We were sixteen sail of Holland, 
 
 And a hundred of the line, 
 And I was pricked a volunteer 
 
 Aboard the Convertine. 
 We had stormed the fort and castle 
 
 From rising of the sun,
 
 THE BALLAD OF RICHARD PEAKE 159 
 
 And long ere noon they landed 
 
 And silenced every gun. 
 But I was no shore soldier, 
 
 And so on board must bide 
 What time my Lord of Essex 
 
 Marched up the country-side. 
 
 Now it fell on the Monday morning 
 
 I took my leave ashore, 
 And walked up through the orange groves 
 
 A mile might be, or more. 
 'Twas said the country-side was bare, 
 
 The country-folk in flight, 
 A score of miles round Cadiz town, 
 
 And not a don in sight ; 
 When suddenly a cavalier 
 
 His long sword at the thrust 
 Came spurring down the narrow way 
 
 With a clatter through the dust. 
 His steed was checked, his grip was loosed, 
 
 With a flap from my blue cloak ; 
 I clutched the rider by the heel, 
 
 And caught the muffled stroke ;
 
 160 THE BALLAD OF RICHARD PEAKE 
 
 I dragged him down upon his face 
 
 And stripped him where he lay, 
 I took five silver pieces 
 
 And a horse in that affray. 
 But while he begged his life in words 
 
 That lisp on English ears, 
 There stole down through the orange groves 
 
 His squad of musketeers : 
 And when my hands were bound behind, 
 
 That knight to his disgrace 
 Took back the sword I stripped him of 
 
 And slashed me in the face. 
 With seven guards on either hand 
 
 And this brave knight before, 
 They brought me bound and bloody 
 
 In through the city door ; 
 They gored my back with halberds 
 
 And spat into my face. 
 The urchins called me heathen swine, 
 
 God give them little grace ! 
 They threw me into prison 
 
 So bloodless and so weak, 
 It needed all their leeches
 
 THE BALLAD OF RICHARD PEAKE 161 
 
 To find me strength to speak ; 
 And vain it was my Captain sent 
 
 To ransom Richard Peake. 
 I saw our frigates hoisting sail 
 
 Upon the seventh day, 
 And through my dungeon window 
 
 I watched them fade away. 
 Two Irish monks came every noon 
 
 And wasted pious breath, 
 Abjuring me from heresy 
 
 Since I must die the death ; 
 And when a' week had passed they said 
 
 It was the Governor's mind 
 That I should thence to Xeres town 
 
 To the torture, they divined. 
 
 In Xeres Duke Medina lay 
 
 With many a Count and Earl, 
 And gravely these good lords were met 
 
 To try the English churl. 
 It was a pleasant sight to see 
 
 Where they sat in double rows, 
 
 Such ruffles and such velvet cloaks 
 M
 
 162 THE BALLAD OF RICHARD PEAKE 
 
 And slashen sleeves and hose ! 
 The Duke sat at the table's head 
 
 With the King's golden chain 
 I mind no finer gentlemen 
 
 Than gentlemen in Spain. 
 And there and then Medina's self 
 
 Rebuked that craven knight 
 Who struck the prisoner in the face 
 
 He dared not face in fight. 
 They plied me well with questions 
 
 What guns were in the fleet ? 
 What ship was mine ? what captain ? 
 
 And I answered as was meet. 
 They asked how strong the fort was 
 
 That watches Plymouth Sound, 
 And boastfully I lied my best 
 
 As a Devon man was bound. 
 Quoth one, " Why spared ye Cadiz ? 
 
 Your fleet put back to sea ! " 
 " Who loots," said I, " in palaces 
 
 May let the almshouse be." 
 But all this while the soldiers round 
 
 Made mirth each time I spoke,
 
 THE BALLAD OF RICHARD PEAKS 163 
 
 And ugly words for English ears 
 Went round the common folk : 
 
 Until some jest rang o'er the rest, 
 And all those nobles smiled ; 
 
 Now God forbid that I should stand 
 And hear my land reviled. 
 
 I said, " Your king keeps gallant troops 
 
 To wear such bands and cuffs, 
 And they should hold in battle firm 
 
 When the starch is in their ruffs. 
 Yet were I free to pick my choice 
 
 From a score of oaken sticks, 
 I'd stand and play my quarterstaff 
 
 For life or death with six." 
 " Now, by the rood," Medina said, 
 
 " A braggart though thou be, 
 I will not take thee at thy word, 
 
 But fight thou shall with three ! " 
 
 And if I made so bold a face 
 Be sure it was not pride,
 
 164 THE BALLAD OF RICHARD PEAKS 
 
 But Richard Peake of Tavistock 
 
 Had heard his land belied. 
 I deemed my death was long resolved, 
 
 So basely would not die, 
 And three to one were heavy odds 
 
 For a better man than I. 
 A halberd was my quarterstaff 
 
 They knocked the blade away, 
 The iron spike which shod the butt 
 
 Stood me in stead that day. 
 I swung the halberd round my head 
 
 And felt my might again, 
 And I took my stand for England 
 
 Against the arch-foe Spain. 
 
 Then out stepped three hidalgos, 
 
 Steel armoured cap-a-pie, 
 And lightly sprang into the lists 
 
 With a mocking bow to me. 
 God save my Lord though I must speak- 
 
 It was a pretty fight. 
 Three long swords thrust and feinted 
 
 In front, to left, to right ;
 
 THE BALLAD OF RICHARD PEAKE 165 
 
 While round their heads the halberd swung 
 
 And as they closed up near, 
 I snapped two blades, then shortened grip 
 
 And used it as a spear ; 
 I drove it at the third one's breast, 
 
 And a horrid wound it made, 
 The iron butt went through his heart 
 
 And out by the shoulder-blade. 
 And now befell a wondrous thing, 
 
 I needs must say again 
 Earth holds no finer gentlemen 
 
 Than the gentlemen of Spain 
 
 Those nobles rose and clapped their hands, 
 
 The Duke was first to speak, 
 He bade no man on pain of death 
 
 Lay hands on Richard Peake. 
 They gave me gold, a band and cuffs, 
 
 This cloak I wear, the ring, 
 And sent me forth escorted well 
 
 To see the Spanish King ; 
 And in Madrid on Christmas Day 
 
 I knelt before his sight,
 
 166 THE BALLAD OF RICHARD PEAKS 
 
 Resolving all his questionings 
 
 With what poor wit I might. 
 He would have had me bide in Spain 
 
 To serve on shore or sea, 
 But I've a wife by Tavy side 
 
 And she's got none but me. 
 Wherefore he pitied my estate 
 
 And pardon free bestowed, 
 With a hundred pistoles in my scrip 
 
 For charges on the road. 
 And so I bade Madrid farewell, 
 
 And came without annoy 
 Through France to Bordeaux haven, 
 
 And thence took ship to Foy. 
 
 Now while the Tamar winds to sea, 
 
 And while the Tavy runs, 
 God bless my old west country, 
 
 And God bless all her sons ! 
 It's not in vain we've tracked the deer 
 
 By dale and moor and fen, 
 And drunk the morning with our lips, 
 
 And grown up brawny men.
 
 THE BALLAD OF RICHARD PEAKE 167 
 
 It's not in vain we swam the Sound, 
 
 And tugged the heavy oar, 
 And braced the nerve and trained the limbs 
 
 That English mothers bore. 
 And therefore when the fight goes hard, 
 
 And the many meet the few, 
 She'll still find hands to do the work 
 
 That English lads must do. 
 So here I render thanks to God, 
 
 Who brought me through the sea, 
 Across the desert, back again, 
 
 My mother-land, to thee. 
 
 This was the tale of Richard Peake 
 
 Of Tavistock in Devon, 
 And the fight he fought in Xeres town, 
 
 God rest his soul in Heaven !
 
 HAWKWOOD 
 
 " WHO'LL ride with me," said rough Sir John, 
 
 " In quest of new adventure ? 
 The Black Prince over seas has gone, 
 
 And cancelled our indenture. 
 
 " The Duke of Milan sends to France 
 
 Enlisting sturdy fighters, 
 And I've a mind to break a lance 
 
 Against the Saxon Reiters. 
 
 " The Pisan and the Florentine 
 
 Renew their ancient tussle, 
 And Guelph outbids the Ghibelline 
 
 For English blood and muscle.
 
 HA WKWOOD 169 
 
 " They say the world has softer skies 
 
 Beyond the Alpine passes, 
 Where fiercer fires light up the eyes 
 
 Of more bewitching lasses ; 
 
 " They say that there on summer hills 
 
 The grapes grow sweet as honey, 
 And there the threadbare trooper fills 
 
 His saddle-bags with money ; 
 
 " So Jock and Hal may sail for home, 
 And swear their old loves sweeter, 
 
 But I will ride the road to Rome, 
 And see the grave of Peter." 
 
 Sir John he crossed the mountain bar 
 
 With a troop of fifty banners, 
 He taught the Guelph the art of war, 
 
 He taught the Ghibelline manners. 
 
 Fate prospered all he took in hand, 
 
 The years were full of chances, 
 And all the laurels in the land 
 
 Were wreathed for Hawkwood's lances.
 
 170 HA WKWOOD 
 
 There in an age that held the name 
 Of free-lance in abhorrence, 
 
 He won an honest soldier's fame 
 
 With the sword he drew for Florence. 
 
 So Arno's bank and Elsa's vale, 
 And blue Carrara's quarries, 
 
 Have heard the clink of English mail 
 What time he rode his forays. 
 
 And there he saw his eightieth year, 
 And died a right good fellow, 
 
 And there her greatest Condottier 
 Was frescoed by Uccello ; 
 
 And still beside Our Lady's door, 
 
 Who holds the lily-flower, 
 He rides on guard for evermore 
 
 In the shade of Giotto's tower.
 
 THE DUKE HAS FRIENDS 
 
 MY answer is fill up your glass ! With you, Sir 
 
 John, the Port ! 
 They may call him traitor if they dare, and hound 
 
 him from the Court ! 
 
 There's many a courtier I could name has had his 
 
 fingers black 
 With dipping after dirty coin in some one else's sack. 
 
 But you and I may only know we've drawn for 
 
 England's right, 
 Behind the greatest captain that ever rode to fight !
 
 172 THE DUKE HAS FRIENDS 
 
 Have you forgotten Eckerslau when the balls were 
 
 thick as rain, 
 And we thought the word would never come to take 
 
 the field again : 
 
 When the battle hung in balance, and we waited for 
 
 his sign : 
 Do you remember what you felt as he cantered down 
 
 the line? 
 
 His breast was all one blaze of stars, his wrists were 
 
 ruffed with lace, 
 The wind blew back his scented hair and showed his 
 
 splendid face ; 
 
 The bullets snarled like angry wasps, the cannon 
 
 thundered loud, 
 As he drew his rein before our ranks, and raised his 
 
 hat and bowed ; 
 
 "With your permission, gentlemen of the English 
 
 cavalry, 
 Myself will lead you to the charge, sound trumpet, 
 
 charge ! " said he.
 
 THE DUKE HAS FRIENDS 173 
 
 And calm as in the hunting -field he wheeled his 
 
 chestnut round, 
 And all the line behind him leapt forward with a 
 
 bound. 
 
 Then when the fight was over, and Blenheim lost 
 
 and won, 
 And England's greatest day went down in triumph 
 
 with the sun, 
 
 I see him as he bowed once more in answer to our 
 
 cheers, 
 That splendid English gentleman, that prince of 
 
 cavaliers ! 
 
 The town may talk its head off I care not who they 
 
 tell, 
 The Duke! his health in bumpers, and the court 
 
 may go to Hell !
 
 QUIBERON 
 
 SIR EDWARD HAWKE the Admiral 
 Had trapped the French in Brest, 
 
 When a gale that blew a hurricane 
 Came driving from the west. 
 
 The cruising fleet bore up awhile 
 
 To shelter in Torbay 
 The wind went round and stealthily 
 
 The Frenchmen slipped away. 
 
 So the quidnuncs of the coffee shops, 
 The loafers of the Strand, 
 
 And the watermen from Tower stairs 
 Had a merry job in hand.
 
 QUIBERON 175 
 
 They made a mimic man of straw, 
 
 With hose and buckled shoe, 
 With frogged tail-coat and gold-laced hat, 
 
 An Admiral of the Blue. 
 
 They hauled him down to Westminster 
 
 And fixed him on a pike, 
 And there they burned in effigy 
 
 The Hawke that did not strike. 
 
 But while that mob in London town 
 
 Proclaimed their panic spite, 
 Between the shoals and Croisic roads 
 
 He had fought his great sea-fight ; 
 
 Five days he chased them southwards 
 
 And east before a gale, 
 Till 'twixt Bellisle and Quiberon 
 
 They counted twenty sail. 
 
 That angry sea was thick with reefs, 
 
 A lee-shore loomed behind, 
 But Hawke dashed in at headlong speed 
 
 Close-reefed before the wind ;
 
 176 QUIBERON 
 
 And in the gate of Quiberon, 
 At noon the self-same day 
 
 That rabble burned his effigy, 
 
 The Hawke had struck his prey. 
 
 Choiseul may sell his transports now 
 To quench his troopers' thirst, 
 
 The fleet that menaced England 
 Is shattered and dispersed ; 
 
 September rang with Minden's news, 
 
 October won Quebec, 
 November's gales and Quiberon 
 
 Achieved the final wreck. 
 
 And the quidnuncs of the coffee shops 
 
 Felt very big and brave, 
 And swore once more that Englishmen 
 
 Were born to rule the wave.
 
 THE FIRST OF JUNE 
 
 THAT fight shall be remembered while sea-tides ebb 
 
 and flow, 
 That fight that fell on the first of June a hundred 
 
 years ago ; 
 
 What time in the mid- Atlantic, far out of the ken of 
 
 shore, 
 The flag of the double crosses was matched with the 
 
 tricolor. 
 
 The fleets were even ship for ship, and man for man 
 
 the crews, 
 And braver seaman never sailed than Villaret-Joyeuse.
 
 i;8 THE FIRST OF JUNE 
 
 When Howe broke through his battle line, the first to 
 
 join the fray, 
 The Vengeur shook her top-sails out and raced to bar 
 
 the way ; 
 
 The Brunswick steering for the gap was next to 
 
 gallant Howe, 
 And driving on before the wind she struck her on the 
 
 bow; 
 
 The forechains held her anchor fast, she swung and 
 
 could not free, 
 So tethered in a deadly grip those two dropped off to 
 
 lee. 
 
 Our English blew their ports away, the shock had 
 
 jammed them to, 
 They rammed their guns with shot and chain and 
 
 raked the Vengeur through. 
 
 While hand to hand on the upper deck the Frenchmen 
 
 swarmed to board, 
 Redressed the balance of the fight with grape and 
 
 pike and sword :
 
 THE FIRST OF JUNE 179 
 
 That long forenoon the battle raged they scarce knew 
 
 how or where, 
 Who, shrouded in a sulphur mist, fought out their duel 
 
 there. 
 
 Our figure-head was Brunswick's Duke, who died at 
 
 Auerstadt, 
 Now it chanced a round shot carried off the Duke's 
 
 three-cornered hat. 
 
 Brave Captain Harvey lay below with the wound of 
 
 which he died, 
 But as the word passed round the decks he raised him 
 
 on his side, 
 
 And, "God forbid King George's fleet or Admiral 
 
 Howe should see 
 The gallant Duke uncover to Villaret," says he. 
 
 His strength was ebbing as he spoke, but smiling 
 
 through the pain, 
 " I shall not need," he whispered, " to wear my own 
 
 again,"
 
 i8o THE FIRST OF JUNE 
 
 " Take my cocked hat and brush away the powder 
 
 from the lace, 
 And send for Jack the carpenter to nail it in its place." 
 
 The bullets snarled and spattered thick where'er a 
 
 face might show, 
 But Jack just said "Aye, aye, sir," and touched his 
 
 hat to go. 
 
 They watched him crawl out on the boom, they lost 
 
 him in the smoke, 
 And through a pause of battle roar they caught his 
 
 hammer's stroke. 
 
 But when the breeze a moment's space blew all the 
 
 forecastle clear 
 There rose from half a thousand throats a ringing 
 
 English cheer : 
 
 For Jack was back at quarters begrimed and black and 
 
 torn, 
 "And the Duke does not uncover, lads, to any 
 
 Frenchman born ! "
 
 THE FIRST OF JUNE 181 
 
 You know the rest, the long swell grew, the vessels 
 
 strained and heeled 
 Till the grapple parted, and away the stricken Vengeur 
 
 reeled ; 
 
 Her spars still swung, but rudderless she drifted o'er 
 
 the seas, 
 And lost the mastless Brunswick to close with the 
 
 Ramillies. 
 
 An hour more and waterlogged she rolled a helpless 
 
 wreck, 
 But still she bore the tricolor above her bloody deck. 
 
 When seven ships had struck their flags and that great 
 
 fight was done, 
 When the shrouding smoke drew up and off towards 
 
 the setting sun, 
 
 They saw her sinking slowly down with all her dying 
 
 brave, 
 And boats put out in eager haste to succour and to 
 
 save.
 
 182 THE FIRST OF JUNE 
 
 Too late, alas, to rescue all the sea winds took their 
 
 cry, 
 The cool waves washed their fevered wounds and they 
 
 died as heroes die. 
 
 All honour to the men who wore the tricolor cockade, 
 All honour to the Vengeur for the splendid fight she 
 made ! 
 
 And to our own brave sailor lads all honour then as 
 
 now, 
 But when the first of June comes round and you drink 
 
 to gallant Howe, 
 
 Remember Jack the carpenter who held his life in 
 
 scorn, 
 If Brunswick should uncover to any Frenchman born.
 
 AT STRATHFIELDSAY 
 
 THE Autumn sun went down on Strathfieldsay, 
 
 An old man rode by shadowy lawn and dell, 
 
 The old horse turned and took the homeward way, 
 
 And sweetly evening's benediction fell. 
 
 Then wreathing smoke and grove and gable-crest, 
 
 Melting together in the sunset skies, 
 
 Piled a fantastic fabric in the west, 
 
 And touched the chord of sleeping memories. 
 
 He saw it all ; there frowned the battled height, 
 
 Here flowed Agueda livid in the glare, 
 
 Ciudad Rodrigo blazed into the night, 
 
 And cannon thundered through the misty air ; 
 
 Sounds of far voices, silent long ago, 
 
 Rose like faint echoes, and close by his side 
 
 Familiar forms seemed flitting to and fro, 
 
 While darkness gathered and the red glow died.
 
 i8 4 AT STRA THFIELDSA Y 
 
 The old horse whinnied, and he bowed his head, 
 The twilight mellowed to its own again, 
 " All that I lived through ! and they all are dead ! 
 Grant us Thy peace, God merciful. Amen ! "
 
 TENNYSON 
 
 IN to the silent Abbey, to the heroes' burying-place, 
 Bear him and leave him lying, peer with the peers 
 of his race ! 
 
 With the men of debate and battle, the mighty of 
 
 heart or of brain, 
 Warders of Empire's outposts, home with their own 
 
 again : 
 
 Fitting is their death -welcome the masks of his 
 
 great compeers 
 Wrapt in the trance of silence fitter for him than 
 
 tears.
 
 186 TENNYSON 
 
 Never a sigh escort him, he has lived the tale of his 
 
 days, 
 His burial-wreath is the laurel, his dirge is a nation's 
 
 praise. 
 
 Why do we call him hero? Why do we bury him 
 
 here? 
 Why are all England's greatest gathered about his 
 
 bier? 
 
 Wandering sons she hath many, erring and loved no 
 
 less, 
 But this was the son of her heart, and his strength 
 
 was his faithfulness. 
 
 Singer of England's saga, back to the misty prime, 
 Rolling a morning glamour over the night of time ; 
 
 Singer of English gardens, poet of English springs, 
 Lover of earth's dear beauty, and all elemental things. 
 
 Never a girl in England, or in England over the sea, 
 But wakes to her life's first love-dream sweetlier-souled 
 for thee.
 
 TENNYSON 187 
 
 Never a boy's young life-blood thirsts for the dawn 
 
 of deeds, 
 But it throbs to a nobler impulse as he turns thy roll 
 
 and reads. 
 
 That was his lofty level, all that is hard and high, 
 All that is purely purposed, theme of his minstrelsy : 
 
 Never for easy guerdon the goodliest gift disgraced 
 Flinging a tainted poison down to a morbid taste : 
 
 Never a doubt or shadow cast on a virgin soul, 
 But love in a pure white garment, and faith in an 
 aureole ; 
 
 Lending the mute thought language, flame to the 
 
 waning fire, 
 A voice for the dream of the simple, a song for the 
 
 world's desire. 
 
 For his heart was the heart of a child, and of such 
 
 since time began 
 Are those the Eternal uses to speak to the heart of 
 
 man.
 
 PUMWANI 
 
 COMRADES mine of Blanche and Swallow scattered 
 
 now a hundred ways, 
 Such a march we made together, once in torrid 
 
 August days ! 
 
 Up the mangrove creeks we laboured, where the 
 crooked roots divide, 
 
 Clutching fast the shoaling mud-banks and encroach- 
 ing on the tide ; 
 
 Gaunt and hideous rose the baobabs with their bloated 
 
 stems and bare, 
 And their gray arms stretching naked to the rank and 
 
 steamy air ;
 
 PUMWAN1 189 
 
 There we slept beneath the mangoes on forsaken 
 
 village sites, 
 And drank in the cool refreshment of the wind-swept 
 
 tropic nights, 
 
 Till at last the word was forward ! and a noiseless 
 
 camp awoke, 
 And the line fell into order ere the blush of morning 
 
 broke. 
 
 Faint our track wound through the clearings, with 
 
 their rank grass shoulder high, 
 Right and left the dense black forest walling in a 
 
 tropic sky ; 
 
 Where the gum-vine binds the branches and the 
 
 fiercely fecund soil 
 Bars the way to human ingress, tightens tangles into 
 
 coil. 
 
 The thorn palm took fantastic shapes and drooped a 
 
 withered skirt, 
 The vultures rose into the blue to give the woods 
 
 alert.
 
 igo PUMWANI 
 
 Each followed close on his fellow's steps in the single 
 
 serpent file, 
 Like the gray baboons at the forest edge, and the 
 
 line reached half a mile. 
 
 The black marsh water splashed our knees, the ooze 
 
 sucked down our boots, 
 The slimy mud-fish wriggled off and hid in the tangled 
 
 roots. 
 
 And every man held back his breath of all three 
 
 hundred men, 
 For the dropping shots gave warning we were near the 
 
 robber den. 
 
 Then a bugle broke the stillness of that forest edged 
 
 with eyes, 
 Then a wild uproar of drumming and a thunder to the 
 
 skies ; 
 
 Tongues of flame and battle rattle, puffs of smoke 
 
 along the green, 
 Silent pauses in the volleys, and the foe we fought
 
 PUMWANI 191 
 
 Yet our little line drew closer, creeping on by slow 
 
 degrees, 
 While the rockets like winged dragons ploughed a fire 
 
 track through the trees. 
 
 And the minutes passed like hours, and the burning 
 
 sun beat down, 
 Till ere noon drank up the shadows we were in the 
 
 rebel town. 
 
 Once again the heart beat lightly and a sense of 
 
 triumph grew, 
 For the fort was well defended and great gaps were in 
 
 our few. 
 
 Swiftly fell the tropic evening, and, while camp fires 
 
 flickered red, 
 We drew softly off on one side and we gathered up 
 
 our dead ; 
 
 By a lantern's feeble flicker read the words with which 
 
 we trust 
 This our brother to God's keeping, this his body to 
 
 the dust.
 
 192 PUMWANI 
 
 Dug a trench for you to lie in, you whose home was 
 
 on the wave, 
 You the white man with the dark men, your bedfellows 
 
 in the grave, 
 
 White and black both dead for England, with the 
 
 grass mats round your heads, 
 And we turned and left them lying in their solitary 
 
 beds. 
 
 So world over sleep the English, eyes of friends will 
 
 never look 
 Through that gloom of Afric forest where we buried 
 
 Stoker Cook. 
 
 Only gray baboons will chatter in the branches where 
 
 you lie, 
 And the quick hyena scamper through the tangle 
 
 silently ; 
 
 Yet such meed of due remembrance I would yield 
 
 you as I may, 
 Since you gave your life for England have her 
 
 greatest more to say ?
 
 PUMWANI 193 
 
 Since last night we slept together, 'twixt the grasses 
 
 and the star, 
 And to-night you sleep for ever by the bitter chance 
 
 of war. 
 
 But the camp was quick with laughter, for the blood 
 
 was beating high, 
 Laugh out, life is for the living, for the dead at most 
 
 a sigh. 
 
 And the men whose hearts are boys' hearts set the 
 
 lanterns in a ring, 
 And the battle dawn's reaction made the peace of 
 
 evening sing. 
 
 So the old sea -songs came rolling till the chorus 
 
 shook the trees, 
 And the tropic stars looked wondering at the men 
 
 from over seas. 
 
 Then the hand-shake and the silence, and brief sleep 
 
 for those who may. 
 Let to-morrow take its chances, we have lived our 
 
 lives to-day. 
 
 EAST AFRICA, 1893.
 
 TO GERALD PORTAL 
 
 A BLOOD-RED sky, a milky sea ; 
 
 And home almost in hail, 
 And you that walked the deck with me 
 
 To watch that glory pale ! 
 
 I think my eyes had never seen 
 
 So grand an even sky, 
 As that which ushered Europe in, 
 
 You only reached to die. 
 
 Was it there first I learned to know 
 How much you were to me ? 
 
 Though neither spoke, for that red glow 
 Had struck the silent key.
 
 TO GERALD PORTAL 195 
 
 The torrid suns were far behind, 
 
 The toil of dreary days, 
 The breaths of poison striking blind, 
 
 The wild untrodden ways : 
 
 I had no doubts, I never thought 
 
 Those kind and fearless eyes, 
 Those strong unfaltering hands, were wrought 
 
 Of stuff that lightly dies. 
 
 O fierce dark land, unconquered still, 
 
 Though doomed to our behest, 
 How long ere thou hast drunk thy fill 
 
 Of the blood of England's best ! 
 
 The ship glides on, and overhead 
 
 The moonless night succeeds, 
 Henceforth whenever skies are red 
 
 I may think my own heart bleeds. 
 
 1894-
 
 NOTES 
 
 SAN JUAN DE LUA 
 
 Though many had held it was God's work too, etc. 
 Page 15. 
 
 The experiment of introducing African negroes into 
 the West India Islands was first suggested by the 
 excellent bishop Las Casas, who recommended the 
 purchase of prisoners for this object on the West 
 African coast, where barbarous customs devoted the 
 weaker races to human sacrifice or the orgies of 
 cannibalism, on the plea that their servitude would 
 save them from a horrible fate and enable them to be 
 made Christians. It is stated that while the slave-trade 
 gave these prisoners a material value, the customs of the 
 dominant races were suspended. 
 
 THE REPRISAL 
 
 The fierce black tribes of the Cimaroons. Page 69. 
 
 Cimaroons or Maroons : Sp. Cimarrones. 
 
 " Eighty years ago a number of African slaves had
 
 I 9 8 BALLADS OF THE FLEET 
 
 been driven by the cruelty of their masters to take to 
 the woods, and having found favour in the eyes of the 
 Indian women, they had now grown into two great 
 tribes, whose terrible mission it was to rob, and kill, and 
 torture every Spaniard on whom they could lay their 
 hands." Corbett's Drake, p. 23. 
 
 THE WORLD ENCOMPASSED 
 
 And bared the sword his arm alone might wield in 
 honour bound. Page 1 1 o. 
 
 The fact that Drake himself was the executioner of 
 Thomas Doughty, taking thus the full responsibility on 
 his own shoulders, is recorded in the correspondence 
 of the Spanish envoy. Mendoza, who cross-examined 
 Wynter on the whole episode, showed a suspicious 
 interest in his fate. 
 
 They had sought for the fabled outlet of the Straits of 
 Anian. Page 133. 
 
 The name given to the supposed northern passage 
 between the two oceans, the existence of which was an 
 article of faith with the old mariners. 
 
 Re-echoing in an alien speech the great sea-captain's 
 name. Page 137. 
 
 It is believed that the city of San Francisco occupies 
 the site where Drake set up the pillar and inscription,
 
 NOTES 199 
 
 recording that he had taken possession of " New Albion " 
 in the name of Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 For Hattorfs was the proud device they had carried 
 round the world. Page 150. 
 
 A Golden Hind was the crest of Christopher Hatton, 
 the Captain of the Guard, who was one of the chief 
 promoters and shareholders in the venture. In chang- 
 ing the name of the Pelican to the Golden Hind, Drake 
 diplomatically identified with his enterprise one of the 
 reigning favourites at court. 
 
 THE FIRST OF JUNE 
 
 The flag of the double crosses was matched with the 
 tricolor. Page 177. 
 
 The French fleet which took part in this memorable 
 battle was the first which used the tricolor flag. 
 
 The third cross was only added to the Union Jack in 
 1 80 1. The original flag was the red cross of St. George, 
 to which St. Andrew's cross was added by James I. 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.
 
 A 000027392 o __