"We saw them moving about under the trees, and when we came near, they paddled out to meet us. They made a long speech with many gestures, and it seemed as if they couldn't do us reverence enough. The next day they came again, and this time they brought a great ragged bunch of crow's feathers. The man who stood at the king's right hand knelt before me and touched the ground with his forehead three times. Then he gave me the feathers. I noticed that the king's guards all wore such bunches on their heads, so I stuck them in my red cap as well as ever I could, and the savages all danced around me and made the most unearthly screeching that I ever heard. Then they began to show us their wounds and sores, and made signs that we should blow on them to heal them. I gave them plasters and lotions. They ought to do some good, for they were mixed on a day that Dr. Dee said would make any medicine of worth." "Tell me about the _Cacafuego_," bade the queen, and Drake said:-- "We took a Spanish ship, and one of the sailors said, 'Let me go free and I will tell you such news as you never heard before.' I promised, and he said, 'There's a ship not far ahead of you, her name is the _Cacafuego_, and if you can catch her, you'll have such a prize as you never saw in a dream--and I'll get my revenge on her captain for this,' he muttered, and then he put his hand on a great red scar on his forehead. We chased her to Payta, but she had gone to Panama, and when we came to Panama, she was somewhere else. 'I'll give a gold chain to the first man that sees her,' I said, and, your Majesty, if I had even given an order to drop anchor, I verily believe every man of them would have climbed the masthead. Well, about three o'clock one afternoon my page John caught sight of her, and we pursued. Oh, but it was glorious! I wish you had been there!" said the sturdy sailor, forgetting for a moment that he was addressing the sovereign of England. "So do I," declared Elizabeth, and she too forgot that she was a queen, she forgot everything but the wild adventures that the man before her had met. Drake went on:-- "We fired across her bow, but she wouldn't stop. Then we shot three pieces of ordnance and struck down her mizzen mast, and we boarded her. A man could wade up to his waist in the treasure in her hold. There were thirteen chests full of Spanish reals, there were six and twenty tons of silver, and fourscore pounds of gold, and there were jewels and precious stones. Your Majesty can see them in the Tower, but oh, how they glittered and flashed and sparkled in the dark hold of the vessel when we broke open the caskets and turned the light of the lanterns on them, and how the dons swore at us! It's many a month that they should do penance for that day's work." "I really wonder that you didn't excommunicate them as you did your own chaplain," said Elizabeth.