Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/47

 while the changed character of the heavens—the fading out of the old constellations and the appearance of new ones—seemed to give a further and sinister significance to portents already big with the decrees of Fate.

We catch something of the relief with which this dreaded region was left behind in the increased liveliness of the narrative of Lancaster's voyage as the vessels approach the Indian Ocean. But death still dogged the course of the fleet. At Madagascar there expired on the Red Dragon "the master's mate, the preacher and the surgeon with some ten other common men," and as the captain of the Ascension was going ashore in his boat to the funeral of the departed he and his boatswain's mate, who accompanied him, were slain by a shot from one of the guns fired as a ceremonial salute in accordance with the custom followed on such occasions. "So they that went to see the burial were both buried there themselves." The narrator adds that those who succumbed at Madagascar "mostly died of the flux, which in our opinion came with the waters we drank"—a highly probable circumstance.

Quitting Madagascar, Lancaster steered directly for the Straits of Malacca. Assisted by the favouring south-west monsoon he made a good passage to Acheen, off which port his fleet dropped anchor on June 5. In selecting this spot he no doubt followed the advice of Davis, whose experience with Houtman's fleet taught him that this was one of the most important centres of the spice trade, which was then, to a large extent, the staple Eastern commodity. The capture of a share of this trade was the primary object of the expedition. An immediate effect of the Dutch intrusion into the East had been to raise the price of Indian pepper in the English market from 3s. to 8s. per pound,