As soon as Martin had attained an adequate height, Drake demanded to know whether the large island of which he desperately wanted news was visible. Its real existence was a point he desperately needed to prove, for the benefit of his belief in his own sanity.
Martin uncapped the telescope's objective lens, and put it to his eye. “I can see two isles to the west, captain,” he reported. “The nearer is tiny, no bigger than this one, but the other—God's blood!"
There had been a time when Drake's automatic reaction would have been to warn the boy against taking the Lord's name in vain, but they were in the middle of the mis-named Pacific Ocean now. Although Drake had prayed as fervently as he ever had in his life during the storms that had driven them back to Peru when they had first emerged from the Magellan Straits, cursing did not seem so dire a sin when the nearest church was a thousand miles away and papist.
"What is it, boy?” Drake asked, anxiously.
"It's a ship, captain,” Martin reported. “She's heading straight toward us with full sail. She's bigger than the Pelican."
Drake did not trouble to remind his kinsman that the Pelican had now been the Golden Hind for more than fifty days. “Is she flying Spanish colors?” he asked, filled with sudden dread.
"The cross of Saint George!” Martin reported, excitedly. “She's English!"
Drake could not share his cousin's enthusiasm. The remainder of his crewmen would doubtless be as glad as Martin to discover Englishmen on the far side of the world, but to him it signified that he had been forestalled. He could not imagine by whom, but the fact was obvious—unless the red cross were a treacherous ploy, intended to deceive. That seemed unlikely, though. The Spanish ships plying the nascent navigation-paths west of the Americas were cargo vessels, not warships; they had no fear yet of pirates or privateers and no incentive to display false colors.
Although the Hind was anchored to the south of the islet, with no headland to shield her from view, there was no way that the captain of this mysterious vessel could tell what she was unless the man in his crow's-nest was equipped with a telescope at least as good as Drake's own. Even if the Spanish navy had such instruments, they would not have been given to explorers of this ocean. As good Romanists, the Spaniards were supposed to believe that the Pacific had no land in it at all, with the possible exception of Dante's mount of Purgatory. The existence of the Americas had already proved Cosmas’ geography ludicrously false, but the Roman Church always let go of its mistakes by slow degrees.
"Has she gun-ports in her sides?” Drake demanded.
"Can't tell,” Martin replied. “She's front-on, and all I can see for sure is her sails. But she's English, captain—English for sure."
"Come down now!” Drake commanded. The boy made haste to obey. Drake remembered as soon as he had spoken that he had not asked for details of the more distant island that Martin had seen—but there would be time enough for that when more urgent matters had been settled.
Drake did not wait for Martin's feet to touch the ground. He set off down the hill, cursing himself for not having cleared a better trail as they came up it. Running was direly difficult, and it seemed to Drake that the vines had become positively malevolent, lying in ambush to catch his feet and trip him. To avoid any impression of panic, though, he waited until he did not have to yell at the top of his voice to order William Ashley, his second mate, to regather the landing-party and get the pinnace afloat.
The wind was blowing from the west, almost directly contrary to the course Drake had been endeavoring to follow. That was why he had consented to put in at such a unpromising island, which would surely have been inhabited had it nursed the free-standing pools and streams of fresh water he needed to replenish his casks. Given that the other ship was under full sail, and had been close enough for its colors to be identifiable at first sight, it would likely reach the island within the hour. It would be politic for the Golden Hind to be in deep water when she arrived, with sail enough aloft to out-maneuver her. Even if her colors were true, that could not guarantee that her crew were loyal subjects of Queen Jane. It was darkly rumored in Plymouth that the Elizabethans had enough ships and captains of their own to form a shadow navy of sorts, and that they had secret bases in the far-flung corners of the globe, from which they ceaselessly plotted rebellion. Drake thought such tales highly unlikely, but the appearance of the ship was so improbable in itself that he dared not discount any possibility.
Drake had no fear of being outgunned, let alone of being outsailed, by Spaniards, Elizabethans, or the Devil himself. The tightness in his chest and the nauseous feeling in his gut arose entirely from frustration, not from some God-given presentiment of disaster. As he made what haste he could to reach the strand with his dignity intact, all he could think about was the folly that had caused him to be seduced by Tom Digges and John Dee into volunteering for the crew of the ethership instead of making his present expedition three years before, in 1577. That three-year delay, it seemed, had cost him his priority. Even knowing the position of the island he had selected as his target—the sole advantage he had obtained from the ethership's disastrous voyage—had proved inadequate. Someone had got here ahead of him.
There was confusion on the beach as men hurried back toward the pinnace from every direction, bearing whatever natural booty they had been able to gather—coconuts, for the most part, with a few turtles and baskets of eggs laid by ground-nesting birds. There was need of a sharp mind and a commanding voice, but Drake was careful to give his orders in a level voice, rather than barking or howling them, forming the words with precision. No one asked him what the matter was; the crew did as they were told, as quickly and efficiently as they could. Once Martin had arrived in his wake, though, still carrying the precious telescope, the sailors were quick to seek better enlightenment from the boy.
The mate was the one man who guessed why Drake was so anxious in the face of seemingly good news. As soon as the pinnace was afloat and headed back to the Golden Hind Ashley made his way to Drake's side and murmured in his ear: “How did they come here, captain? Who else knows what you know about the isle at seventeen?” He meant seventeen degrees south—the latitude that Walter Raleigh had estimated while he had hastily sketched a series of maps during the ethership's initial ascent.
"Why, no one,” the captain replied, grimly. “Who would believe it, if anyone did, since I am mad, and everything that happened aboard the ethership was mere Devil-led delusion?"
Drake spoke sarcastically, as he had learned to do, but it was the truth. So far as he knew, no one else did know of the island's existence, save for the Golden Hind's officers—and none of them had been told until they had left the Magellan Straits. He had told no one in England—not even Tom Digges—while he tried in vain to convince the ethership's master that their experiences within the moon and among the stars had most certainly not been a dream.
Only three of the Queen Jane's five-man crew had survived the break-up of the ship, although the bodies of the other two had never been found, presumably having fallen into the Kentish marshes or the Thames estuary. Of those three, John Field had embellished his own experiences with such a surfeit of imagined devilry that no one in the world—with the possible exception of his master, Archbishop John Foxe—could have believed his testimony. Tom Digges, to Drake's utter astonishment, had claimed that it had all been a hallucination caused by the intoxicating effects of the ether. The combination of those two testimonies, set against his own, had made Drake seem a monumental fool when he insisted that it had all been real, and that the Devil had not come into it at all. Drake had been forced to abandon that insistence, and by virtue of that abandonment, he had kept Walter Raleigh's sketch-map a very close secret indeed. He had taken care not to show it to Master Dee, let alone to Northumberland or any other member of the Privy Council, reserving it for his own future use.
In truth, he could not know how trustworthy the map was. Had he not had his own duties to attend to while the ethers
hip was in flight—he was the only true crewman aboard, save for Digges—he would certainly have made his own maps as best he could, or at least graven the sight of the world's far side more securely into his memory, but he had had work to do. Raleigh had been trained in navigation and mathematics by Dee, just as Drake had, so his eye ought to have been trustworthy, but Raleigh had stuffed most of his drawings and scribblings into his own doublet before leaping to his death. Drake had only picked up a single sheet, dropped in the confusion, and he had no reliable way of knowing how good its scrawled estimates of latitude and longitude were, or whether the island really was the largest landmass in the vast Pacific east of the Austral continent and its companion isles.
If even he could not be sure of anything, what reliable information could any other shipmaster have had? If he had been beaten to his target by pure chance, it was a cruel blow. Had he set out in 1577 to explore the Pacific, as he had originally planned, he might have found the isle by chance himself.
Drake had to pause in his thoughts to bark further orders to the men aboard the Golden Hind as the pinnace came alongside. By the time the landing-party was back on board, with the pinnace lifted up and its meager cargo unloaded, the ship was already putting on sail and the anchor was ready to be raised. Drake snatched the telescope from his kinsman and began to climb the rigging himself to use it to best effect.
The vessels were coming together rapidly now, although the Hind was merely waiting, and Drake was able to take the other vessel's measure. She was bigger than the Hind, but not as well-crafted. She was moving swiftly, but that was because she was riding high in the water, evidently carrying very little cargo. The Hind was fully-laden, as she had had to be for an expedition into unknown waters, with landfalls likely to be very few and far between.
Martin had confirmed that there was another island beyond the tiny one he had seen. If the other captain was sailing without a full complement of necessary supplies, Drake reasoned, he must have come from that isle, and must have a secure base there—but there was no need for further speculation. Whether its lookout had a telescope or not, the master of the other ship had to know by now that the Golden Hind was heavily armed; even so, the vessel kept sailing dead ahead, intent on a rendezvous.
Damn you! Drake thought, bitterly. Damn you to Hell, whoever you are! He knew, though, that it was a thought he would have to keep to himself.
* * * *
2
"What vessel are you?” cried a voice from the prow of the other vessel. None of the men gathered there was wearing a naval uniform.
"The Golden Hind, out of Plymouth,” replied Edward Hammond, Drake's first mate. “Sir Francis Drake her master. What ship are you?"
If the other vessel had been away from home for several years, Drake thought, his name might still strike the right resonance, identifying the most glorious of all Queen Jane's privateers: the man who had mustered the Cimaroon army to attack the Spanish in Panama and Mexico, rather than the madman whose mind had been addled by contact with the interplanetary ether.
"The Fortune, out of Southampton,” was the ritual reply. “Sir Humphrey Gilbert her master."
Gilbert! Drake repeated, silently. He had never met the man, but knew the name. Gilbert was not so much a mariner as a tradesman, but it was said that he had gone exploring—like many a pioneer before him—for the north-west passage. If so, he was half a world away from where he should be—and where he was very likely to have perished, if precedent signified anything. Until John Dee had built his ethership, the only thing in the world more dangerous in than seeking the north-west passage to the Indies had been seeking the north-east passage thereto. The tropics were terrible regions for disease, drought, and piracy, but Drake had always preferred hazards of those sorts to the implacable enmity of limitless ice.
One thing of which Drake could be gladly certain, though, was that Sir Humphrey Gilbert was no enemy, for all that he must now be reckoned a successful rival in the navigation of the Pacific. When the invitation came for him to come aboard the Fortune, he agreed immediately. The pinnace was lowered again, after the inevitable delay caused by the necessity of bringing the two ships on to the same course, carrying just sail enough to match their progress. Drake took no one with him but half a dozen oarsmen. He climbed up to the Fortune's deck alone.
Gilbert was waiting for him, in company with two mates. One of the mates and fully half the crew bore far more resemblance to Patagonians or Peruvians than Europeans, although they were distinct in kind. Gilbert was stout and grey-haired, looking far more the tradesman than the mariner. He appeared to be at least fifty years old—a very ripe age for the latter vocation. He also appeared to be anxious and apprehensive, although he seemed sincerely joyful to see his visitor.
"I'm delighted to meet you, Captain Drake,” the old man said. “Your arrival is so timely that it's surely a gift from God."
"Timely?” Drake repeated. “How so?"
Gilbert's answer was somewhat evasive. “It's more than two years since we've had news from home,” the tradesman said. “We never expected to see another English ship in these parts—nor a Spaniard either, since Magellan failed to complete his own crossing."
"Your astonishment must be less than my own,” Drake replied, carefully, “for I had no inkling that any Englishman had come here before me. If you were commissioned by the Queen or her Privy Council, I wish that they had warned me that others might have gone through the Straits of Magellan before me."
"There was no one who could warn you, Captain,” Gilbert said. “Even had they known that you might come here instead of hunting Spanish gold in Peru.” Gilbert had obviously guessed that Drake had not been entirely honest in revealing his true plans to the authorizers of his own voyage.
"Have you founded a colony on the large island yonder?” Drake asked.
"I wouldn't call it a colony,” Gilbert said, “but it's long been our base."
"And why are you so glad to see the Golden Hind?” Drake asked, bluntly. “Is your base under threat?"
"We've feared so in recent weeks,” Gilbert confessed. “The island provides abundant resources, in terms of water, food, and wood, but we've run short of gunpowder—and the guns we have would be of little use were hostile tribesmen to attack us in force. The arrival of so many Englishmen, as fully armed as your ship seems to be, will surely reduce that probability dramatically. You'll accept our hospitality, I hope? The contrary wind will make it a slow passage, for we'll have to tack very broadly, but I think you'll find the destination congenial if you've run low on water and fresh food—as you must have done, there being no sizeable island between here and the Land of Fire."
"I was blown back to the South American coast the first time I set out to make the ocean crossing,” Drake admitted. “We made landfalls in Chile, but the natives took us for Spaniards and reacted accordingly. We had to go as far as Peru before we found a Spanish port we could take, in order to make repairs and take on adequate supplies of water and food."
"It's a bad coast,” Gilbert agreed. “No Cimaroons there with whom to make alliance. You've done exceedingly well, Captain Drake, to get this far—and you're fortunate to find us. Tahiti is large enough, and has more than a hundred satellite islands, but this ocean is very large indeed, and the cluster would be easy enough to miss."
"Tahiti?” Drake queried.
"It's the native name for the isle. We were able to establish friendly relations when we first arrived, but matters have deteriorated somewhat since then. I hope that won't deter you from accepting our invitation to visit."
"Of course not,” Drake said. “The invitation is most welcome, and if we can be of service ... might I recognize the names of anyone else included in your we?"
"Very likely. Some of our men might conceivably have sailed with you in the Caribbean, since we recruited seasoned ocean sailors, but you'll doubtless identify them in your own time. Among the patrons of the voyage, you'll certainly have heard of Thomas Muffet."<
br />
"Muffet?” Drake echoed, amazed to hear the name. “Muffet the physician, who turned the Royal College upside-down? The silkworm man?"
"Indeed. A man not unlike yourself, in that he was somewhat underappreciated in his own land, although he's not a man of action: a physician, as you say, whose new ideas were not at all welcome when he returned home after his continental studies."
"A Paracelsian,” Drake observed.
"In a broad sense, yes,” Gilbert agreed, “although the aspect of Paracelsus’ creed that appealed to him most was its irreverence for received authority and its determination to make medical theory anew. As a friend of Tom Digges and John Dee, you must surely sympathize with the revolutionary thrust of the new New Learning."
Drake pursed his lips slightly at the mention of Digges’ name, but all he said aloud was: “Master Dee taught me navigation and figures, as he did for many an English captain, but I couldn't presume to call him a friend—although you must surely have that privilege."
"We knew one another quite well at one time,” Gilbert admitted, blandly, “but we drifted apart."
Drake knew that there were rival camps within English learning, whose nuances he did not understand. Even Dee's determination to build a national library had embroiled him in a surprisingly fervent rivalry with men like Stephen Batman; his more adventurous explorations in mathematics, alchemy, and astrology were regarded as intellectual follies even by some who did not think them frankly heretical. The revisionist alchemy that had underpinned Dee's construction of the ethership would have been labeled Paracelsian by some, but Drake knew Tom Digges well enough to understand that its theory had far outstripped that of Paracelsus. Was it possible, he wondered, that Thomas Muffet had made similar advances in the medical field? But if so, why on earth would he have taken ship for the remotest reaches of the southern ocean? Unorthodox medical practice had never been a safe business in England, even before Foxe's puritans gained such a stronghold within the established Church and the Royal College had obtained its monopolistic warrant, but men of that sort forced into exile could easily find safe havens on the continent.
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