Herbert Strang

With Drake on the Spanish Main Herbert Strang

Daybreak! But, eastward, no glory of dawn. Black thundrous clouds roll sullenly across a livid sky, riven at moments by pale zigzags of flame. Rain tumbles in cascades. League upon league of white-crested waves chase one another in fury, hissing, roaring as they hurl themselves upon a stubborn shore, only to be broken and thrown back into the seething turmoil. The wind outstrips them, shrieking as it cleaves a way through the massed foliage, in mad haste to reach the mainland and smite the yielding tops of Darien's palms and pines.