The exaltation of the ecstatic devotees continued till the day he left.  They crowded in to be cured by the touch of his hand—­those were the times in which the sovereign was expected to cure the King’s Evil by a touch.  They also expected to be cured by inhaling the divine breath of any one among the English gods.  The chief narrator adds that the gods who pleased the Indians most, braves and squaws included, ’were commonly the youngest of us,’ which shows that the human was not quite forgotten in the all-divine.  When the time for sailing came, the devotees were inconsolable.  ’They not only in a sudden did lose all mirth, joy, glad countenance, pleasant speeches, agility of body, and all pleasure, but, with sighs and sorrowings, they poured out woefull complayntes and moans with bitter tears, and wringing of their hands, and tormenting of themselves.’  The last the English saw of them was the whole devoted tribe assembled on the hill around a sacrificial fire, whence they implored their gods to bring their heaven back to earth.

From California Drake sailed to the Philippines; and then to the Moluccas, where the Portuguese had, if such a thing were possible, outdone even the Spaniards in their fiendish dealings with the natives.  Lopez de Mosquito—­viler than his pestilential name—­had murdered the Sultan, who was then his guest, chopped up the body, and thrown it into the sea.  Baber, the Sultan’s son, had driven out the Portuguese from the island of Ternate and was preparing to do likewise from the island of Tidore, when Drake arrived.  Baber then offered Drake, for Queen Elizabeth, the complete monopoly of the trade in spices if only Drake would use the Golden Hind as the flagship against the Portuguese.  Drake’s reception was full of Oriental state; and Sultan Baber was so entranced by Drake’s musicians that he sat all afternoon among them in a boat towed by the Golden Hind.  But it was too great a risk to take a hand in this new war with only fifty-six men left.  So Drake traded for all the spices he could stow away and concluded a sort of understanding which formed the sheet anchor of English diplomacy in Eastern seas for another century to come.  Elizabeth was so delighted with this result that she gave Drake a cup (still at the family seat of Nutwell Court in Devonshire) engraved with a picture of his reception by the Sultan Baber of Ternate.

Leaving Ternate, the Golden Hind beat to and fro among the tortuous and only half-known channels of the Archipelago till the 9th of January, 1580, when she bore away before a roaring trade wind with all sail set and, so far as Drake could tell, a good clear course for home.  But suddenly, without a moment’s warning, there was a most terrific shock.  The gallant ship reared like a stricken charger, plunged forward, grinding her trembling hull against the rocks, and then lay pounding out her life upon a reef.  Drake and his men at once took in half the straining sails; then knelt in prayer; then