had become of the rest no man could tell but Capt. Henry Morgan
himself. Honesty among thieves was never an axiom with him.

Rude, truculent, and dishonest as Captain Morgan was, he seems to
have had a wonderful power of persuading the wild buccaneers

under him to submit everything to his judgment, and to rely
entirely upon his word. In spite of the vast sum of money that he

had very evidently made away with, recruits poured in upon him,
until his band was larger and better equipped than ever.

And now it was determined that the plunderharvest was ripe at
Porto Bello, and that city's doom was sealed. The town was

defended by two strong castles thoroughly manned, and officered
by as gallant a soldier as ever carried Toledo steel at his side.

But strong castles and gallant soldiers weighed not a barleycorn
with the buccaneers when their blood was stirred by the lust of

gold.
Landing at Puerto Naso, a town some ten leagues westward of Porto

Bello, they marched to the latter town, and coming before the
castle, boldly demanded its surrender. It was refused, whereupon

Morgan threatened that no quarter should be given. Still
surrender was refused; and then the castle was attacked, and

after a bitter struggle was captured. Morgan was as good as his
word: every man in the castle was shut in the guard room, the

match was set to the powder magazine, and soldiers, castle, and
all were blown into the air, while through all the smoke and the

dust the buccaneers poured into the town. Still the governor held
out in the other castle, and might have made good his defense,

but that he was betrayed by the soldiers under him. Into the
castle poured the howling buccaneers. But still the governor

fought on, with his wife and daughter clinging to his knees and
beseeching him to surrender, and the blood from his wounded

forehead trickling down over his white collar, until a merciful
bullet put an end to the vain struggle.

Here were enacted the old scenes. Everything plundered that
could be taken, and then a ransom set upon the town itself.

This time an honest, or an apparently honest, division was made
of the spoils, which amounted to two hundred and fifty thousand

pieces of eight, besides merchandise and jewels.
The next towns to suffer were poor Maracaibo and Gibraltar, now

just beginning to recover from the desolationwrought by
l'Olonoise. Once more both towns were plundered of every bale of

merchandise and of every plaster, and once more both were
ransomed until everything was squeezed from the wretched

inhabitants.
Here affairs were like to have taken a turn, for when Captain

Morgan came up from Gibraltar he found three great men-of-war
lying in the entrance to the lake awaiting his coming. Seeing

that he was hemmed in in the narrow sheet of water, Captain
Morgan was inclined to compromise matters, even offering to

relinquish all the plunder he had gained if he were allowed to
depart in peace. But no; the Spanish admiral would hear nothing

of this. Having the pirates, as he thought, securely in his
grasp, he would relinquish nothing, but would sweep them from the

face of the sea once and forever.
That was an unluckydetermination for the Spaniards to reach, for

instead of paralyzing the pirates with fear, as he expected it
would do, it simply turned their mad courage into as mad

desperation.
A great vessel that they had taken with the town of Maracaibo was

converted into a fire ship, manned with logs of wood in montera
caps and sailor jackets, and filled with brimstone, pitch, and

palm leaves soaked in oil. Then out of the lake the pirates
sailed to meet the Spaniards, the fire ship leading the way, and

bearing down directly upon the admiral's vessel. At the helm
stood volunteers, the most desperate and the bravest of all the

pirate gang, and at the ports stood the logs of wood in montera
caps. So they came up with the admiral, and grappled with his

ship in spite of the thunder of all his great guns, and then the
Spaniard saw, all too late, what his opponent really was.

He tried to swing loose, but clouds of smoke and almost instantly
a mass of roaring flames enveloped both vessels, and the admiral

was lost. The second vessel, not wishing to wait for the coming
of the pirates, bore down upon the fort, under the guns of which

the cowardly crew sank her, and made the best of their way to the
shore. The third vessel, not having an opportunity to escape,

was taken by the pirates without the slightest resistance, and
the passage from the lake was cleared. So the buccaneers sailed

away, leaving Maracaibo and Gibraltar prostrate a second time.
And now Captain Morgan determined to undertake another venture,

the like of which had never been equaled in all of the annals of
buccaneering. This was nothing less than the descent upon and the

capture of Panama, which was, next to Cartagena, perhaps, the
most powerful and the most strongly fortified city in the West

Indies.
In preparation for this venture he obtained letters of marque

from the governor of Jamaica, by virtue of which elastic
commission he began immediately to gather around him all material

necessary for the undertaking.
When it became known abroad that the great Captain Morgan was

about undertaking an adventure that was to eclipse all that was
ever done before, great numbers came flocking to his standard,

until he had gathered together an army of two thousand or more
desperadoes and pirates wherewith to prosecute his adventure,

albeit the venture itself was kept a total secret from everyone.
Port Couillon, in the island of Hispaniola, over against the Ile

de la Vache, was the place of muster, and thither the motley band
gathered from all quarters. Provisions had been plundered from

the mainlandwherever they could be obtained, and by the 24th of
October, 1670 (O. S.), everything was in readiness.

The island of Saint Catharine, as it may be remembered, was at
one time captured by Mansvelt, Morgan's master in his trade of

piracy. It had been retaken by the Spaniards, and was now
thoroughly fortified by them. Almost the first attempt that

Morgan had made as a master pirate was the retaking of Saint
Catharine's Isle. In that undertaking he had failed; but now, as

there was an absolute need of some such place as a base of
operations, he determined that the place must be taken. And it

was taken.
The Spaniards, during the time of their possession, had fortified

it most thoroughly and completely, and had the governor thereof
been as brave as he who met his death in the castle of Porto

Bello, there might have been a different tale to tell. As it was,
he surrendered it in a most cowardly fashion, merely stipulating

that there should be a sham attack by the buccaneers, whereby his
credit might be saved. And so Saint Catharine was won.

The next step to be taken was the capture of the castle of
Chagres, which guarded the mouth of the river of that name, up

which river the buccaneers would be compelled to transport their
troops and provisions for the attack upon the city of Panama.

This adventure was undertaken by four hundred picked men under
command of Captain Morgan himself.

The castle of Chagres, known as San Lorenzo by the Spaniards,
stood upon the top of an abrupt rock at the mouth of the river,

and was one of the strongest fortresses for its size in all of
the West Indies. This stronghold Morgan must have if he ever

hoped to win Panama.
The attack of the castle and the defense of it were equally

fierce, bloody, and desperate. Again and again the buccaneers
assaulted, and again and again they were beaten back. So the