At the lowest of the tide the wind suddenly fell, and the ship losing this support, fell over sideways towards the deep water. So they were to be drowned after all, for she must fill now. No; there was a harsh scraping sound heard. Could it be possible? Yes; her keel was slipping down the slope very gently and mercifully. What a shout these sea-worn mariners raised; how they thanked God for this salvation; for the relief had come at low tide, when all their efforts seemed to be useless. Surely it was a miracle--an answer to their captain's prayers. On reaching Java, Drake was informed that there were large ships not far off--Portuguese settlements were rather too near to be safe; so he steered for the Cape of Good Hope, which his men thought "a most stately thing, and the fairest cape they had seen in the whole circumference of the earth." As the _Golden Hind_ sailed along by Sierra Leone and towards Europe, the great sea rover must have felt that the prayer he had breathed within the mammoth tree on Darien six years before was at last fulfilled. He had sailed the South Sea and crossed the Pacific and made the compass of the round world in the _Golden Hind_ within three years. As they reckoned, when nearing Plymouth Sound, it was Monday, September 25, 1580, but within an hour they learnt that they had arrived on Sunday. No one expected them; no one at first realised what vessel it was that came silently to anchorage, heavy and slow from the barnacles and weeds; for the news had come home that Drake had been hanged by the Spaniards. But only in August last, Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, had come to Burghley with a wild tale sent him by the Viceroy of Mexico, that El Draque had been ravaging the Pacific, and playing the pirate amongst King Philip's ships. The Queen pretended she knew nothing about it, and pacified the ambassador by seeming to agree with him that Drake was a very naughty man indeed. So, when the _Golden Hind_ dropped her anchor, a few friends took boat and told her captain how things were going at Court. Drake's blue eyes at first looked steely. Had he sailed round the world and brought all this treasure home to be given over to Spain? But a moment's thought brought a merry twinkle into those eyes, and he gave a sharp order: "Up with the anchor, there! Warp her out behind St. Nicholas Island!" If he must be treated as a pirate, then they must catch him if they can. "You will take my excuses to the Mayor, and tell him how gladly I would land; but you have the plague, I hear, at Plymouth; our constitutions are hardly strong enough to bear an attack of plague."