Then the combined forces, not much over a hundred strong, stole out and along the coast to the Isle of Pines, where again Drake found himself forestalled.  From the negro crews of two Spanish vessels he discovered that, only six weeks earlier, the Maroons had annihilated a Spanish force on the Isthmus and nearly taken Nombre de Dios itself.  These Maroons were the descendants of escaped negro slaves intermarried with the most warlike of the Indians.  They were regular desperadoes, always, and naturally, at war with the Spaniards, who treated them as vermin to be killed at sight.  Drake put the captured negroes ashore to join the Maroons, with whom he always made friends.  Then with seventy-three picked men he made his dash for Nombre de Dios, leaving the rest under Ranse to guard the base.

Nombre de Dios was the Atlantic terminus, as Panama was the Pacific terminus, of the treasure trail across the Isthmus of Darien.  The Spaniards, knowing nothing of Cape Horn, and unable to face the appalling dangers of Magellan’s straits, used to bring the Peruvian treasure ships to Panama, whence the treasure was taken across the isthmus to Nombre de Dios by recuas, that is, by mule trains under escort.

At evening Drake’s vessel stood off the harbor of Nombre de Dios and stealthily approached unseen.  It was planned to make the landing in the morning.  A long and nerve-racking wait ensued.  As the hours dragged on, Drake felt instinctively that his younger men were getting demoralized.  They began to whisper about the size of the town—­’as big as Plymouth’—­with perhaps a whole battalion of the famous Spanish infantry, and so on.  It wanted an hour of the first real streak of dawn.  But just then the old moon sent a ray of light quivering in on the tide.  Drake instantly announced the dawn, issued the orders:  ’Shove off, out oars, give way!’ Inside the bay a ship just arrived from sea was picking up her moorings.  A boat left her side and pulled like mad for the wharf.  But Drake’s men raced the Spaniards, beat them, and made them sheer off to a landing some way beyond the town.

Springing eagerly ashore the Englishmen tumbled the Spanish guns off their platforms while the astonished sentry ran for dear life.  In five minutes the church bells were pealing out their wild alarms, trumpet calls were sounding, drums were beating round the general parade, and the civilians of the place, expecting massacre at the hands of the Maroons, were rushing about in agonized confusion.  Drake’s men fell in—­they were all well-drilled—­and were quickly told off into three detachments.  The largest under Drake, the next under Oxenham—­the hero of Kingsley’s Westward Ho!—­and the third, of twelve men only, to guard the pinnaces.  Having found that the new fort on the hill commanding the town was not yet occupied, Drake and Oxenham marched against the town at the head of their sixty men, Oxenham by a flank, Drake straight up the main street, each