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Yet it struck George as somewhat strange that an air of such absolute security should seem to pervade the port; for things had been said during his visit to San Juan de Ulua which must have caused the authorities there to more than suspect the intention of the Englishmen to descend upon Nombre; and there had been time enough for a fast dispatch boat to make the voyage from the one city to the other, warning Nombre to be on the alert.
"My dear chap," he said, "if, as you say, I have thus far been the more important individual of the two here in Ulua, you know as well as I do that it has been solely by virtue of this Kuhlacan amulet that I wear.
"Ah, the Alamo!" said Obed White. His face clouded at the words. He was thinking then of the gallant youth who had escaped with him from the dungeon under the sea in the castle of San Juan de Ulua, and who had been his comrade in the long and perilous flight through Mexico into Texas.
His features were well formed, clean cut, and aristocratic looking, as they might well be, seeing that the man was none other than Juda, the King of Ulua, and direct descendant of a long line of kings whose origin was lost in the mists of antiquity.
On the morning of the ninth day after their departure from the harbour of San Juan de Ulua the adventurers sighted Cape Catoche, the most northerly point of the Peninsula of Yucatan, broad on the lee bow, tacked two hours later and made a stretch off the land until sunset, when they tacked again to the southward; and on the following day at noon their reckoning showed that they had accomplished their passage through the Strait of Yucatan and were once more in the Caribbean Sea.
Which meant, as George pointed out to his officers when he translated the document to them, that upon their arrival at San Juan de Ulua, they would assuredly find a certain number of plate ships in the harbour, laden with treasure, and quite defenceless, save for such protection as the shore batteries might be able to afford.
It was near this spot that, just a year earlier, the squadron under Captain Hawkins' command had encountered the two successive hurricanes which had played such havoc with them as to compel them to run to San Juan de Ulua to refit, with the result that irremediable disaster had overtaken them; and Dyer, who had looked forward with considerable trepidation to the time when he would again be called upon to sail those treacherous seas, was loud in his thanksgivings for the good fortune which had thus far attended them, for nothing could be more satisfactory and delightful than the weather which the voyagers were now experiencing, the only drawback to their content being an unaccountably heavy sea into which they ran about midnight, and which Dyer was inclined to regard as the forerunner of the much dreaded hurricane.
The skipper of one of the smaller vessels, the Judith, was Francis Drake, a relative and protégé of the Hawkins family, and then a youth of twenty-two. On September 16, 1567, after a series of encounters stormier than ever in the Spanish settlements, the squadron homeward bound was driven by bad weather into the port of Mexico City in San Juan de Ulua Bay.
As already mentioned, we arrived at the port of St Juan de Ulua on the evening of Holy Thursday, the 21st April 1519, where we came to anchor, Cortes hoisting the royal standard of Spain.
Give the matter into the hands of Acor, who met ye at the gate when ye first entered Ulua; he is a good man, staunch and I believe faithful, and such orders as ye may give him he will execute. Meanwhile, I will retire to mine own quarters and will there prepare a parchment investing you with full power to act as you may deem necessary in defence of the Queen's peace.
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