singled out Captain"

"The sailor threw up his left hand to ward off the attack"

"A shot fell immediately in their wake"

Map to illustrate Drake's adventures

"The seaman flung him bodily at the fourth Spaniard."

CHAPTER I

Jetsam

Daybreak! But, eastward, no glory of dawn. Black thundrous clouds roll sullenly across a livid sky, riven at moments by pale zigzags of flame. Rain tumbles in cascades. League upon league of white-crested waves chase one another in fury, hissing, roaring as they hurl themselves upon a stubborn shore, only to be broken and thrown back into the seething turmoil. The wind outstrips them, shrieking as it cleaves a way through the massed foliage, in mad haste to reach the mainland and smite the yielding tops of Darien's palms and pines.

The shelving sandy beach is strewed with the jetsam of the storm. Here, a tangled heap of seaweed, left by a breaker when, spent with its own rage, it falls back baffled. There, a log of wood, hard by nameless creatures of the sea, destroyed by the fury of their own element. And here, high up the strand, beneath a bank overgrown with large-leaved plants, lies a human form, huddled, motionless.

The waves do not touch it now; the storm has exhausted itself; the tide is ebbing. Minute by minute the sea becomes less boisterous; the strip of sand widens; the rain ceases. By and by the sun breaks through the eastern sky, and, gathering strength, disperses the lingering clouds and flings his radiance over the scene. His beams, falling aslant through a gap in the cliffs, strike upon the draggled form on the sand; it stirs slightly, stretching itself as a leaf uncurls. At last, when the air quivers with heat, and all things lie under a shimmering haze, Dennis Hazelrig heaves a sigh, opens his eyes, and looks amazedly about him.

His eyes close; for some minutes he remains still; then he lifts himself slightly, falls back with a gasp, and lies again as one dead. But Nature is recovering under the beneficent rays. Pigeons are cooing in the branches above; parrots are screaming; insects drone their burden; and when a mosquito, adventuring forth, alights on a human cheek, and tastes, Dennis is stung once more into consciousness. He starts up, brushes the marauder away, staggers to his feet, and, to prevent himself from falling, clutches at a tuft of grass in the overhanging bank. Its thin blade-like edge draws blood from his hand, and he looks at the red stain as at some strange phenomenon. Then he laughs huskily, checks the sound as though it too is unfamiliar, and laughs again—a short sobbing laugh.

"Certes, I am alive!" he mutters.

An hour or two passed before Dennis ventured once more to try his tottering legs. The sun's heat had dried his clothes, which, as he ruefully observed, had been so rent by the buffeting waves that they hung upon him precariously. But in the same genial warmth his strength was returning, and though all his body ached, he could now move without a stagger. Catching sight of some clams near him, he was conscious of a vast emptiness within, and felt for the clasp-knife which he was wont to wear slung about his waist. It still hung upon its chain. He had opened and eaten, ravenously, a dozen of the shellfish before he realized that after all his thirst exceeded his hunger, and he looked round for a spring of fresh water. He walked some paces along the shore, groaning with every movement, until his ear caught the musical ripple of a stream, and he saw a rivulet flowing across the sand from a narrow water-course in the cliff. In an instant he was down on his knees, drinking his fill.

Refreshed with the draught, he rose and began to consider. He was alive: that was the first thing. It seemed marvellous to him. The tornado had ceased. Looking round, he could hardly believe that the sea now so calm was the same sea which, but a few hours before, had been a raging monster. As far as the eye could scan it stretched away, shimmering in the sunlight, only a white crest here and there giving sign of its late disturbance. Not a sail broke the line of the horizon. What had become of the Maid Marian and her crew and his companion adventurers on board? Had they, had any of them, been cast ashore like himself, on some other part of this strange coast? If he had escaped, why not others? There was something cheering in the thought, and instinctively he braced himself for a search when, remembering that awful night—the amazing suddenness of the blast that struck the bark, rending the sails like ribands, snapping the mainmast like a reed, the tumultuous waves, the crashing thunder, the bursts of lightning, the deluge that poured down from the heavens—as he remembered these battling elements he shuddered involuntarily; could it be otherwise than by a miracle that he had survived?

He lived over again his last conscious moments. The mainmast had gone by the board. He heard the hoarse shout of Miles Barton the master, calling upon the men to cut away the wreckage. He was with them at the task, struggling to keep his feet, when the gallant vessel staggered under the onslaught of a tremendous sea, and he was swept off her deck. He heard cries all around him, but could see nothing for the darkness and the blinding rain. Striving to keep his head above water, he felt his strength failing, so puny was it against the might of the passionate waves, when he encountered a floating spar, and clung to it with the tenacity of despair. After that he knew nothing. His grip must have relaxed, for the spar was not near him when he awoke to consciousness on the beach. Yet it seemed that this had been his salvation. He must have held to it until near the shore; then some mountainous breaker had torn him away and hurled him to the spot where he had lately opened his eyes again upon the world.

Hapless bark! It was scarcely possible that she had survived the hurricane. And what of the souls on board with him? What of Miles Barton, the bluff sea-dog her master, and his cheery crew, and the score of gallant gentlemen who had sailed out of Plymouth Sound but two months before, gay, high-hearted adventurers for the Spanish Main? Where was Sir Martin Blunt, the blithe captain of the band, and Philip Masterton, and Harry Greville, and Francis Tring, all young men of mettle, whom Dennis was proud to call his friends, and who, though but little his elders in years, had seen and done things in the great world that made him burn with envious admiration? Alas! he could not but fear that the sea had swallowed them.

But then again came the thought: might not Fortune have befriended them too? Why imagine the worst? And Dennis thrust sad thought from his mind; hope was not dead. His meal had given him strength to search, and search he would.

He looked about him. The sandy beach was narrow. It was overhung by cliffs of varying height, in parts merely a low bank, in parts reaching an altitude of perhaps forty or fifty feet. They were covered with the dense vegetation of the tropics. Some distance to the north of where he stood the receding tide had left bare a long ledge of massive rock, running up into the highest part of the cliff. To the south the shore was less rocky, and within half a mile curved round to the east. It was in