Part 5 (1/2)

When Drake was dying on board his s.h.i.+p in Nombre Dios Bay his thoughts turned of course to England, the country he loved, had fought and died for. He yearned to be back on the red cliffs of Devon; he wanted to sail once again through Plymouth Sound and to be laid at rest in the dear home waters that washed his native sh.o.r.es.

He was dying far from the beloved land. There were battles yet to be fought, victories to be won for England. She might want him again and he would not be there to answer her call.

So he told his men to take back his drum and to hang it upon the sea wall, and if ever England was in danger and called, the sailors were to strike upon his drum and he would rise from the far seas and come back and fight for her.

When England was threatened two hundred years after Drake's death his drum was heard one stormy night by the fisher folk. And there are those who will swear that a strange shadow shape was seen hovering about the old sea wall for many a night.

Then Nelson came to England's rescue and saved her in her hour of need. But let Alfred Noyes tell the tale in his inspiring verse:

”D'you guess who Nelson was?

You may laugh, but it's true as true!

There was more in that pore little chawed-up chap Than ever his best friend knew.

”The foe was creepin' close, In the dark, to our white-cliffed isle; They were ready to leap at England's throat, When--O, you may smile, you may smile;

”But--ask of the Devons.h.i.+re men; For they heard in the dead of night The roll of a drum, and they saw him pa.s.s On a s.h.i.+p all s.h.i.+ning white.

”He stretched out his dead cold face And he sailed in the grand old way!

The fishes had taken an eye and an arm, But he swept Trafalgar's Bay.

”Nelson--was Francis Drake!

O, what matters the uniform, Or the patch on your eye or your pinned-up sleeve, If your soul's like a North Sea storm?”

[Ill.u.s.tration: EARLY PORTRAITS OF SIR JOHN JELLICOE AS MIDs.h.i.+PMAN AS LIEUTENANT]

When the author was in Devons.h.i.+re a little while after the outbreak of the world-war he was talking to an old sailor who had seen service, now retired at the age of nearly eighty years. He stood on the red cliffs beyond Brixham close to the doors of his cottage straining his eyes, still clear and bright, seaward, watching for the s.h.i.+ps he loved.

The author referred to this story and the sailor's face grew grave and he was silent for a long time.

”The drum was beat,” he whispered at last. ”Drake's drum was heered to beat a while back; our lads heered 'er, one night when they was puttin' out from Plymouth Sound.”

He nodded his head to and fro as he took off his cap: ”But I knawed long back when I stood afore Jacky Jellicoe, close as I be standin' to yew; I caught his eye--and I knawed it was Drake come back.... Yes, sir; the old drum beat and he come back as he said he would----”

”If England needs me, dead Or living, I'll rise that day!

I'll rise from the darkness under the sea Ten thousand miles away.”

That's what he said; and he died.

”They lowered him down in the deep, And there in the sunset light They boomed a broadside over his grave, As meanin' to say 'Good Night'

”They sailed away in the dark To the dear little isle they knew; And they hung his drum by the old sea-wall The same as he told them to.”

And now once again the drum has beaten and the spirit of Drake has returned to England. The materialists may laugh; the superst.i.tious may speculate. But the sea folk on the red cliffs of Devons.h.i.+re, _they know_.

It was some months after Pekin had been relieved by the Allied forces of twenty thousand men--the British, under Lieutenant-General Sir A.