Not a man of the sailors ashore escaped. All were butchered, or taken
prisoners for a fate worse than butchery--to be torn apart in the
market-place of Vera Cruz, baited in the streets to the yells of
on-lookers, hung by the arms to out-of-doors scaffolding to die by
inches, or be torn by vultures. The two ships at sea were in terrible
plight. North, west, south was the Spanish foe. Food there was none.
The crews ate the dogs, monkeys, parrots on board. Then they set traps
for the rats of the hold. The starving seamen begged to be marooned.
They would risk Spanish cruelty to escape starvation. Hawkins landed
{139} three-quarters of the remnant crews either in Yucatan or Florida.
Then he crept lamely back to England, where he moored in January, 1569.
Of the six splendid ships that had spread their sails from Plymouth,
only the _Minion_ and _Judith_ came back; and those two had been under
command of a thick-set, stocky, red-haired English boy about
twenty-four years of age--Francis Drake of Devon, one of twelve sons of
a poor clergyman, who eked out a living by reading prayers for the
Queen's Navy Sundays, playing sailor week days.
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