Act 5 — Scene VI.—THE TERRACE OF GREENWICH PALACE.

Enter the Queen and Drake.

Queen (laughing). Abajo Perro! Down dog! Brave boy! I must see him Drake, Ha! Ha! Ha! Abajo Perro! So he leaped foremost aboard, felled the first Spaniard with his fist, shouting Abajo Perro. God’s death! How I should like to have seen the Spaniard sprawling on the deck. Ha! Ha! Ha! A Plymouth boy you say. His name, Drake?

Drake. Thomas Moon, an it please Your Majesty.

Queen. Humph! Fellows have been knighted for less; he’s a hero!

Drake. Such are the men that England wants, my Liege.

Queen. And has, Drake, I am proud to say. (With eagerness) Come! Tell me about the great gold ship.

Drake. As we neared, one broadside brought down her masts, a volley from our longbows mowed her deck, like the scythe in standing corn; we shot up alongside of her, our men rushed aboard, Thomas Moon foremost.

Queen (laughing). Ha! Ha! The Plymouth boy, Abajo Perro! I shall never forget that. Ha! Ha! Ha! Well, well! Go on.

Drake. Well, my Liege! We cut away the wreck, towed her out to sea and took charge of the precious freight at our leisure.

Queen. That’s the way that British sailors do their work. You astonished the Spaniards.

Drake. Your Majesty knows the rest. Magellan’s straits were secured against me, and I was not going to surrender what I had got.

Queen. No, Drake was not the man for that.

Drake. So I decided to take my chance, on the great unknown ocean, and by the Cape of Good Hope.

Queen (thoughtfully). The great unknown ocean, without chart or pilot!

Drake (with an air of confidence). My Liege, I had the stars of Heaven, and Him who set them in their courses, whose law I proclaimed from my deck to every line of longitude on His globe! (Looking up with reverence). Thus, Your Majesty’s little ship, having ploughed a furrow round the earth, arrived safe in Plymouth with a nation’s wealth in her hold.

Queen (eagerly). Tell me all! Tell me all. Strange sights, strange men, strange lands, a tale of wonder; (she muses thoughtfully).

Drake. Your Majesty will have much to hear. The story is long as well as full of wonder. Strange lands, I saw and took possession; there flies your Royal Standard, I proclaimed you Queen. The people flocked around and swore allegiance, (with much animation), a land, my Liege, richer than all the realms of Spain, a land whose streams flow over sands of gold, whose very soil is gold. ’Tis but to dig and wash.

Queen (incredulous she rebukes, what she thinks exaggeration, with a shake of her head). Drake! Drake.

Drake. It is true! my Liege—I have dug, and brought it home. (He throws down a bag on the floor and kneels upon it). I kneel upon the soil, and hail Your Majesty, Queen of California—the future goldfield of the world! (He rises and presents her with the bag). I have the honour to deliver to Your Majesty thus, part for the whole, legal possession of California. (She takes the bag with curiosity and surprise).

Queen. Is this gold? It is heavy!

Drake. There needs only to wash it in a basin—your Majesty will see the gold at the bottom.

Queen. This beats Alchemy. It is miracle! I’ll wash it with my own hands. Drake, I am proud of you. England is proud of you. Men’s minds are filled with your name, astounded by your achievements. You have covered your country with glory, thrown over her a mantle of power. The nations look up to us now and begin to think we can beat the world. Philip is alarmed, and when we all thought you were lost, he could not sleep for fear. He expected you to come on the winds of heaven, to make descents upon his coast.

Drake (kneeling to her). Your Majesty’s approval is my reward. That is the pride and glory of an Englishman.

Queen. My pride and glory is the love and valour of my people. Philip, and Mendoza his Ambassador, are clamorous for restitution, and call you a corsair—pirate—robber! (laughing)

Drake. Our acts are self defence and justifiable retaliation, my Liege. They are the spoilers, robbers, murderers. What is he doing in the Low Countries, to a free, civilized people? Is he not committing wholesale diabolical robbery and murder? Has he not seized our ships in defiance of solemn treaty, trading peaceably in time of peace? Whole fleets of our merchantmen, at Gibraltar and elsewhere,—imprisoning, hanging their crews, or burning them, in the Plazas of his cities, for the amusement of the mob? And we ourselves owed him a measure of vengeance, for the murderous affair of San Juan de Ulloa. But I have meted out to him, measure for measure—pressed down—shaken together.

Queen (laughing). Plenty of shaking, Drake. Plenty! Philip’s fit is not over. He is shaking yet. Cecil, too, is shaking—frightened by Mendoza’s bluster. He says we shall have war unless we give up the treasure—Sussex and Clinton agree with him. I don’t think much of that—I know them! They’re not the men to give up anything of their own (with a sarcastic smile) without a fight for it. They would talk another language, if they had a share in our little venture. (Then with intense curiosity). How much is it, Drake?

Drake. Impossible to estimate, my Liege. Philip puts his losses at one million and a half. That applies, however, only to ascertained, and registered quantities. They don’t know the half of what I have taken—Gold plate and bars by tons! What will your majesty say to cases of pearls and emeralds as large as pigeons’ eggs? I have brought, your majesty, a sample—a little present from your honoured servant. (He presents her with the celebrated crown of emeralds as large as pigeons’ eggs which she gazes on with astonishment and delight.)

Queen. A crown of emeralds! and of such magnitude. The like was never seen in Europe. No regal brow hath ever borne the like. Magnificent! Drake!—Drake! This is of unearthly splendour. Thou art an enchanter, man, or hast been in fairy-land. (She puts the crown on her head and walks about musing; then suddenly confronts him.) Three millions! Who ever dreamed of such a sum? It is a nation’s wealth! Give it up? Once in one’s clutches! Impossible! I could not give it up. Impossible! (She walks about exulting in the possession. She pauses, and asks Drake, with uneasy anxiety.) What think you, Drake? Will there be war?

Drake. Not with Spain, my Liege, unless we declare war. Philip dare not—could not, go to war with us. What would become of the Low Countries then? He could not keep them a single week. Ha! ha! ha! Besides! He has no fleet!

Queen. No fleet? Our statesmen think the sea is covered with his fleets! (ironically) in fact that it is his property.

Drake (with a sarcastic laugh). Statesmen! Tush! tush! What do they know about it? (contemptuously) Spain upon the ocean is a Myth! A huge ball of Foam, my Liege, without force or cohesion, which with the first war-storm upon the angry waves, will scatter and be seen no more! (He walks aside with a wave of his hand; then returning with a triumphant smile.) Can Philip guard his coasts at home; his towns; his churches; from sack and flame? Can he protect his commerce? His merchantmen are sunk or plundered in the channel. His great officers and Nobles put up to auction in our seaports—kept in chains like dogs, till ransomed! Ha! Ha! Ha! (Increasing in energy.) Have I not sailed the Caribean sea, with the cross of St. George proudly at my masthead (he looks to the Queen in proud triumph) burning, plundering, ships and towns?—Have I not landed on the coast, stopped his transports—taken his treasure—and, lastly, launched on the Pacific, the source of all his greatness—seized his bullion on sea and land, and carried a nation’s wealth in my little bark, round the globe, in triumph? Spain, where is thy might? (He walks about in grim triumph, looking for approval to the Queen, who stands amazed and stunned, yet watching her hero with pride and exultation. He comes up to the Queen solemn and serious.) Give him this treasure, my honoured Mistress. (With emphasis.) Put this sting in him!—and then—(he starts as if some dreadful apparition had risen before him, to arrest his speech and force him to contemplate it with doubt and alarm).

Queen (startled at his expression, with deep interest and impatience). You look with grave apprehension on it. What then?

Drake (slow solemn and serious). Why then, my Liege, not your statesmen! for they seem too blind to fear; but your royal Majesty—our beloved country,—nay, Europe itself, would have cause for fear. My soul shrinks within me from contemplation of the fearful consequence. (He is greatly excited, wringing his hands.) Oh! My God! It never struck me before—it flashes on me now—a light from Heaven—fearful! fearful!—seas of blood!

Queen (excited to frenzy, impatient of some dreadful apprehension, rushes up to him, and seizing hold of him, shakes him for explanation.) God of England! Speak man, what mean you? It must be something which quells the soul of Drake.—What then? Quick.—Relieve this boding doubt, this frantic apprehension. Quick! Quick, what then?

Drake. Why then, my Liege, he would equip a fleet, collect his mighty hosts, crush the Low Countries in an hour, annihilate our trade, blockade our ports. France shrinking paralysed, overawed, and then—

Queen (starting away as from a frightful apparition, but with unquailing spirit rushes about with uplifted arms and the rage of a tigress.) I see! I see! I see it all—Villains, fools, and traitors, I should be left without an ally to battle with the world in arms. Rebels, traitors, assassins—Fiends of Hell within—The fleets and armies of Spain without. The wars of the roses over again. Fierce civil strife, seas of brothers’ blood—The proud island before whose arms Europe has quailed, trampled into a Spanish province! (A pause of grim rage and sarcasm), and the moles and bats would give it to him! (She laughs with a grim and bitter expression of rage and exultation). Ha! Ha! Ha! They shan’t, Drake, they shan’t! Philip shall not have one ochavo of it. No! War or no war—never! Shade of Henry of Monmouth! Can thy stone casement hold thee? (She walks about with a proud resolve then confronts him). What then do you propose sir? You are entitled to a voice in the matter.

Drake. Your Majesty can now take the wind out of his sails, you can build and equip the fleet. Give me, my Liege, but a small one, I’ll burn every town upon his coast, every stick of navy he possesses, in harbour or afloat; carry his gold fleet to England, and drive him from the ocean in a month; (he walks aside in exultation).

Queen (abruptly). You’re the man, Drake! you’re the man!

Drake. Then, my Liege, we shall occupy California and the Indies, whose downtrodden people will welcome you as a Saviour. England will become the mart of the precious metals, the centre of universal commerce. The tribes of broken humanity will come begging for the crumbs that fall from your replenished table. Our great race, (elevating his voice) shall spread from land to land, from sea to sea, till one wide luminous zone of truth, of light, of freedom, shall gird the globe; the sun shall make his eternal round and never set in the dominions.

He looks upward with confiding fervour as if delivering a divine message from on high. The Queen overpowered with emotion at the awful development of national greatness.

Queen. Hold! Spare me! My brain turns, stunned, bewildered in the vastness of that visioned future. (She exclaims imploringly as one afraid to advance farther.) Stay! Stay!

Drake (impetuously). I speak not without book, My Royal Mistress. It was not human power that raised your Majesty and held your right hand, (a pause) through death and tyranny, (the Queen much moved) until you reached your throne, or guided my little bark through storm and battle to your shores. It is not chance, my Liege, but Providence that rules! A secret impulse ever drove me on, (a pause) and now assures me that the end is near. The blood of butchered nations crying to heaven, at length is heard. Spain totters to her fall! (He walks aside excited, then returns and continues with energy). The star of England rises from the sea to rule its waves, the ocean rules the land, its trident shakes the earth! (He comes up to the Queen impassioned). ’Tis thine! ’Tis thine! Stretch forth thine hand, my Liege, and grasp the Trident.

Queen (in great excitement). Drake! Drake! A virtue goeth out of thee. I’m filled with awe, but feel the power. (She essays to leave.) Come! Come!

Leaving the terrace absorbed in thought, her outstretched hand grasping at something in the air, whilst Drake still follows her close with earnest voice and gesture.

Drake. My Liege! It is the will of God! It is the will of God.

(Exeunt).