Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/149

 15791 VOYAGE OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. 133 work would be done, and they might go home in triumph. She was several miles ahead of them ; if she guessed their character she would run in under the land, and they might lose her. It was afternoon : several hours remained of daylight, and Drake did not wish to come up with her till dark. The Pelican sailed two feet to the Caca- fuego's one, and dreading that her speed might rouse suspicion, he filled his empty wine casks with water and trailed them astern. 1 The chase mean- while unsuspecting, and glad of company on a lonely voyage, slackened sail and waited for her slow pursuer. The sun sunk low, and at last set into the ocean, and then when both ships had become invisible from the land the casks were hoisted in, the Pelican was restored to her speed, and shooting up within a cable's length of the Cacafuego, hailed to her to run into the wind. The > Spanish commander, not understanding the meaning of such an order, paid no attention to it. The next mo- ment the corsair opened her ports, fired a broadside, and brought his mainmast about his ears. His decks were cleared by a shower of arrows, with one of which he was himself wounded. In a few minutes more he was a prisoner, and his ship and all that it contained 1 'Yporquesunaoybaalgodelan- tero y no navegarse tanto, echo cables porpopa con botiguas llenas de agua.' Relation del viage de F. Drac, Cor- sario Ingles, cual dio el Piloto Nufio de Silva : MSS. Madrid. Hakluyt obtained a copy of this curious narra- tive, but the translator was a bad Spanish scholar, and imagined that the water casks were hung overboard ' as a pretty device to make the ship sail more swiftly' an indifferent compliment to Drake's seamanship.