His crews fought like demons, but they
slew no unarmed man, they molested no woman or child. On these terms
only would he accept allies. Tons of plunder he took, but never a
helpless life. He landed the shivering crews of his prizes on some
Spanish island or with a laugh returned to them their empty ships. "A
dead man's no mortal use to anybody," he would say cheerily, and go on
using his cock-boats to sink or capture galleys. At twenty-seven,
beholding for the first time the shining Pacific, he vowed that with
God's help he would sail an English ship on that sea. Alone upon the
platform built in a great tree with steps cut in its trunk, to which his
negro allies the Maroons had guided him, he conceived the sublimely
audacious plan which he was one day to unfold to Walsingham and the
Queen.
The air was thick with rumors of war with Spain when Drake arrived in
London years later, in the company of a new friend, Thomas
Doughty,--courtier, soldier, scholar, familiar with every shifting
undercurrent of European court life. Never at a loss for a phrase, ready
of wit and quick of understanding, Doughty could put into words what the
frank-hearted young sea-captain had thought and felt and dreamed. Both
knew the peace with Philip to be only deceptive. Walsingham and
Leicester were for war; Burleigh for peace; between the two the subtle
Queen played fast and loose with her powerful enemy.
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