Reaching Rio Francisco, Drake was dismayed to find his pinnaces gone, and his party stranded. The vessels were recovered after delay and perilous adventure, whereupon Drake hastened to prepare another expedition "to get intelligence in what case the country stood, and if might be, recover Monsieur Tetu, the French captain, and leastwise bring away the buried silver." The party was just about to start inland when on the beach appeared one of the two men who had stayed behind with the French captain. At sight of Drake he "fell down on his knees, blessing God for the time that ever our Captain was born, who now beyond all his hope, was become his deliverer." He related that soon after they had been left behind in the forest, the Spaniards had captured Captain Tetu and the other man. He himself had escaped by throwing down his treasure and taking to his heels. Concerning the buried silver, he had lamentable tidings to impart. The Spanish had got wind of it, and he "thought there had been near two thousand Spaniards and Negroes there to dig and search for it." However, the expedition pushed forward, and the news was confirmed. "The earth every way a mile distant had been digged and turned up in every place of any likelihood to have anything hidden in it." It was learned that the general location of the silver had been divulged to the Spaniards by that rascally Frenchman who had got drunk and deserted during the march to the coast. He had been caught while asleep, and the soldiers from Nombre-de-Dios tortured him until he told all that he knew about the treasure. The Englishmen poked around and quickly found "thirteen bars of silver and some few quoits of gold," with which they posted back to Rio Francisco, not daring to linger in the neighborhood of an overwhelming force of the enemy. It was their belief that the Spanish recovered by no means all of those precious tons of silver bullion, and Drake made sail very reluctantly. It may well be that a handsome hoard still awaits the search of some modern argonauts, or that the steam shovels of the workmen of the Panama canal may sometime swing aloft a burden of "bars of silver and quoits of gold" in their mighty buckets. Certain it is that Sir Francis Drake is to be numbered among that romantic company of sea rovers of other days who buried vast treasure upon the Spanish Main. [1] _The Pirates' Own Book_. [2] The famous merchant and philanthropist of Philadelphia. [3] "I happen to know the fact that Blackbeard, whose family name was given as Teach, was in reality named Drumond, a native of Bristol. I have learned this fact from one of his family and name, of respectable standing in Virginia, near Hampton." (Watson's Annals of Philadelphia.) In the contemporary court records of the Carolina colony, the name of Blackbeard is given as Thatch.