An English sailor leaped over decks to the Spanish
galleon with a yell of "_Downe, Spanish dogges_!" The crew of sixty
English pirates had swarmed across the vessel like hornets before the
poor hidalgo knew what had happened. Head over heels, down the
hatchway, reeled the astonished dons. Drake clapped down {154}
hatches, and had the Spaniards trapped while his men went ashore to
sack the town. One Spaniard had succeeded in swimming across to warn
the port.[7] When Drake landed, the entire population had fled to the
hills. Rich plunder in wedges of pure gold, and gems, was carried off
from the fort. Not a drop of blood was shed. Crews of the scuttled
vessels were set ashore, the dismantled ships sent drifting to open
sea. The whole fiasco was conducted as harmlessly as a melodrama, with
a moral thrown in; for were not these zealous Protestants despoiling
these zealous Catholics, whose zeal, in turn, had led them to despoil
the Indian? There was a moral; but it wore a coat of many colors.
[Illustration: Francis Drake.]
The Indian was rewarded, and a Greek pilot forced on board to steer to
Lima, the great treasury of Peruvian gold.
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