"'Cause the pilot o' the _Spit-silver_ he knowed un. He say the plague broke out in the Low Countries, and the old Don took and tended that Gallego servant o' his and then he died--not o' the pestilence--just wore out like. I reckon maybe he told Mus' Drake. I didn't." Silence fell. Then Will said thoughtfully, "He won't be Mus' Drake much longer--by rights--but you never know what a woman'll do. She keep her presents and her favors for them that ha'n't earned 'em--as a rule." Moone presently hummed half aloud, "When I served my master I got my Sunday pudden, When I served the Company I got my bread and cheese. When I served the Queen I got hanged for a pirate, All along o'sailin' on the Carib Seas!" It was a reckless jest, for every one knew that if Elizabeth were dead or married to a Catholic or at peace with Spain when they saw England again, it was extremely likely that the gallows would be their reward. But here, at any rate, was one spot not yet haunted by the Spanish spectre. The Indians, persuaded at last that the white chief was not a god, insisted on making him their King. They crowned him with a headdress of brilliant feathers, in all due ceremony, hung a chain of beads about his neck, and looked on with the utmost reverence while Drake fixed to a large upright post a tablet claiming the land for the Queen of England, and a silver sixpence with the portrait of Elizabeth and the Tudor rose. Securely hidden under the tablet in a hollow of the wood were memoranda concerning the direction in which, according to the Indians, gold was to be found in the streams,--plenty of gold. When she was ready to the last rope's end the little ship spread her wings and sailed straight across the Pacific, round the Cape of Good Hope, home to England. Battered and scarred but still seaworthy the _Golden Hynde_ crept into Plymouth Sound, where Drake heard that the plague was in the seaport. Using this for excuse not to land until he knew his footing, he anchored behind Saint Nicholas Island and sent letters to Court. The sea-dogs who patrolled the Narrow Seas in Elizabeth's time understood her better than her courtiers did. To Drake she was still the keen-minded woman who, like the jeweled silent birds he had seen in tropical jungles, sat in her palace, with enemies all about her alert and observant, and ready to seize her if she came within their grasp. He knew her waywardness to be half assumed, since to let an enemy know what he can count on is fatal. He had not much doubt of her action, but he must wait for her to give him his cue.