"So be it, friends. I cannot but wish that some other man had the telling of it. You will remember--at least thou wilt, Timothy--how Captain John Oxenham sailed out from Plymouth with the _Hawk_, one hundred and forty ton barque, and a crew of seventy men, for the Spanish Main?" "Ay; report says that all were slain by fever and the Indians." "Therein doth report speak falsely. We three went with Oxenham, and we sit here to-day to tell the tale. Whether any other tongue hath told it I cannot say. There is scant hope of any more survivors. Well, to the story itself. We went out of Plymouth Sound, threescore and ten, men and boys, well armed and victualled for six months. We turned our prow westwards, prepared like good adventurers to take what fortune the seas might bring us. The voyage proved a speedy one, with a singular lack of ungentle weather: good omen, we thought, for the success of our enterprise. On the way our captain's plans, which had been somewhat uncertain at the first, took fixed shape. We passed south of the main isles of the Indies, steering for the eastern seaboard of the Isthmus of Panama. We cast along the shore for two days seeking an anchorage, and we found what we sought in a wooded creek, fringed and thronged with islets. A winding river emptied into the creek, and the banks were so thickly clothed with forest as almost to shut out the light of the sun. Dismasting our ship, we thrust her into a tiny bay o'erhung by giant trees, and neither from river nor bank could a glimpse of her be obtained. For a day we worked, making all snug aboard; then we loaded ourselves with provisions and arms, and set out to cross the isthmus to Panama itself, intending to rob the Spanish nest of the golden eggs that daily were laid therein. "There is little to tell of the story of our march to the Pacific. We cut our way for days at a time through woods that were well-nigh impassable. We climbed mountains, threaded defiles, waded through stream and swamp. Our backs bent beneath the weight of our burdens; giant thorns tore, first our clothes, then afterwards our flesh. The sun roasted us by day; mists enwreathed and chilled us by night; a myriad insects bit us, and roaring beasts and lurking reptiles harassed our steps. Some of us were quickly down with fever, and added to the burdens of our comrades, for they bore us upon rude litters of boughs. Oxenham fought shy of the native villages, not being minded to give rumour the chance to herald our approach to the golden goal we sought.