Madeira was passed by and the Canaries spared; for Palma, which Drake
intended should revictual him, showed so bold a front that he would not
waste time in trying to reduce it. It was on another point that his
implacable glance was fixed.
Five years ago at Santiago, the chief town of the Cape Verd Islands,
young William Hawkins, a personal adherent of Drake's, had been made the
victim of some such treachery as his father and captain had suffered
together at Vera Cruz. From that hour it was doomed. In the middle of
November the fleet arrived in the road and the troops landed. Threatened
by Carleill from the heights above the valley where it lies, and from
the sea by Drake, without a blow the town was abandoned to its fate. For
ten days the island was scoured for plunder and provisions, and ere the
month was out the anchorage was desolate and Santiago a heap of ashes.
Drake's vengeance was complete, and, exulting like Gideon in the
devastation that marked his course, he led his ships across the
Atlantic. Is there a moment in history more tragic than that? For the
first time since the ages began, a hostile fleet was passing the
ocean--the pioneer of how many more that have gone and are yet to
go--the forerunner of how much glory and shame and misery! What wonder
if the curse of God seemed upon it? Hardly had it lost sight of land
when it was stricken with sickness.
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