Knocking about in the Channel in bad weather {29} was, however, not to the taste of some of the ruffians who thought they were bound over summer seas to a paradise of plunder; and three thousand men in twenty-five ships, probably most of them owned by the recalcitrant Dutchmen, deserted and were heard of no more--at least so far as the expedition was concerned. This desertion to some extent explains the divergence between the accounts given of the numbers of the expedition. The rest of the fleet on the third day caught a fair wind and stretched across the Bay of Biscay in fine spring weather. They were four days before their eyes were gladdened by the sight of Cape Finisterra, but in the week they had been at sea their provisions were running out. Murmurs at the short commons were heard on all the ships, and it was seen that the only way to keep the scratch crews from open mutiny was to give them a chance of plunder. So, instead of obeying the Queen's strict injunctions--for Drake was a far better hand at commanding than obeying--and landing poor Dom Antonio on the country he assured them was yearning for him, they bore down upon Corunna, on the north-west coast of Spain. For months before this, as the difficulties attending the fitting out of a new Armada became more evident, terror-stricken rumours had pervaded Spain that the dreaded Drake, who had now become a sort of supernatural bogey to the Spanish people, was about to descend upon this or the other place on the coast and wreak a terrible vengeance for the Armada. Early in January even false news came to Madrid that an English fleet had appeared outside Santander, and {30} at the end of the month the Venetian ambassador in Madrid writes to his Doge that news had just arrived from Lisbon that forty sail of English ships were out, divided into squadrons of eight or ten ships each, and were doing much damage. It was feared, he said, that they would all unite under Drake and make an attempt first upon Portugal and then will go to the Azores, and finally to the Indies. The fitting out in Spain of fifty ships to protect the seas was hurried on; but, says the Venetian, "it is thought that two months must elapse before they can be ready, and then one does not see what they can do against such light ships as the enemy's."