All was not, however, going well; for while they lay there, a terrible sickness broke out among them.

Whether this was from the change of life, or from any noxious thing which they ate, or merely from the heat, none could say; but, very shortly, the illness made great ravages among them.

First died Charles Clift, one of the quartermasters.
Then one day, when the pinnace in which Ned always sailed returned, they were met with the sad news that Captain John Drake was also dead.

He had fallen, however, not by the fever, but by the ball of the Spaniards.

He had gone out with one of the pinnaces, and had engaged a great Spanish ship; but the latter had shot more straight and faster than usual, and the captain himself and Richard Allen, one of his men, had been slain in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the ship.