unbelievable adventures. But no sooner had he fairly escaped from

the clutches of the Spaniards than, gathering together another
band of adventurers, he fell upon the very same vessel in the

gloom of the night, recaptured her when she rode at anchor in the
harbor of Campeche under the guns of the fort, slipped the cable,

and was away without the loss of a single man. He lost her in a
hurricane soon afterward, just off the Isle of Pines; but the

deed was none the less daring for all that.
Another notable no less famous than these two worthies was Roch

Braziliano, the truculent Dutchman who came up from the coast of
Brazil to the Spanish Main with a name ready-made for him. Upon

the very first adventure which he undertook he captured a plate
ship of fabulous value, and brought her safely into Jamaica; and

when at last captured by the Spaniards, he fairly frightened them
into letting him go by truculent threats of vengeance from his

followers.
Such were three of the pirate buccaneers who infested the Spanish

Main. There were hundreds no less desperate, no less reckless,
no less insatiate in their lust for plunder, than they.

The effects of this freebooting soon became apparent. The risks
to be assumed by the owners of vessels and the shippers of

merchandise became so enormous that Spanish commerce was
practically swept away from these waters. No vessel dared to

venture out of port excepting under escort of powerful
men-of-war, and even then they were not always secure from

molestation. Exports from Central and South America were sent to
Europe by way of the Strait of Magellan, and little or none went

through the passes between the Bahamas and the Caribbees.
So at last "buccaneering," as it had come to be generically

called, ceased to pay the vast dividends that it had done at
first. The cream was skimmed off, and only very thin milk was

left in the dish. Fabulous fortunes were no longer earned in a
ten days' cruise, but what money was won hardly paid for the

risks of the winning. There must be a new departure, or
buccaneering would cease to exist.

Then arose one who showed the buccaneers a new way to squeeze
money out of the Spaniards. This man was an Englishman--Lewis

Scot.
The stoppage of commerce on the Spanish Main had naturally tended

to accumulate all the wealth gathered and produced into the chief
fortified cities and towns of the West Indies. As there no

longer existed prizes upon the sea, they must be gained upon the
land, if they were to be gained at all. Lewis Scot was the first

to appreciate this fact.
Gathering together a large and powerful body of men as hungry for

plunder and as desperate as himself, he descended upon the town
of Campeche, which he captured and sacked, stripping it of

everything that could possibly be carried away.
When the town was cleared to the bare walls Scot threatened to

set the torch to every house in the place if it was not ransomed
by a large sum of money which he demanded. With this booty he set

sail for Tortuga, where he arrived safely--and the problem was
solved.

After him came one Mansvelt, a buccaneer of lesser note, who
first made a descent upon the isle of Saint Catharine, now Old

Providence, which he took, and, with this as a base, made an
unsuccessful descent upon Neuva Granada and Cartagena. His name

might not have been handed down to us along with others of
greater fame had he not been the master of that most apt of

pupils, the great Captain Henry Morgan, most famous of all the
buccaneers, one time governor of Jamaica, and knighted by King

Charles II.
After Mansvelt followed the bold John Davis, native of Jamaica,

where he sucked in the lust of piracy with his mother's milk.
With only fourscore men, he swooped down upon the great city of

Nicaragua in the darkness of the night, silenced the sentry with
the thrust of a knife, and then fell to pillaging the churches

and houses "without any respect or veneration."
Of course it was but a short time until the whole town was in an

uproar of alarm, and there was nothing left for the little
handful of men to do but to make the best of their way to their

boats. They were in the town but a short time, but in that time
they were able to gather together and to carry away money and

jewels to the value of fifty thousand pieces of eight, besides
dragging off with them a dozen or more notable prisoners, whom

they held for ransom.
And now one appeared upon the scene who reached a far greater

height than any had arisen to before. This was Francois
l'Olonoise, who sacked the great city of Maracaibo and the town

of Gibraltar. Cold, unimpassioned, pitiless, his sluggish blood
was never moved by one single pulse of human warmth, his icy

heart was never touched by one ray of mercy or one spark of pity
for the hapless wretches who chanced to fall into his bloody

hands.
Against him the governor of Havana sent out a great war vessel,

and with it a negro executioner, so that there might be no
inconvenient delays of law after the pirates had been captured.

But l'Olonoise did not wait for the coming of the war vessel; he
went out to meet it, and he found it where it lay riding at

anchor in the mouth of the river Estra. At the dawn of the
morning he made his attack sharp, unexpected, decisive. In a

little while the Spaniards were forced below the hatches, and the
vessel was taken. Then came the end. One by one the poor

shrieking wretches were dragged up from below, and one by one
they were butchered in cold blood, while l'Olonoise stood upon

the poop deck and looked coldly down upon what was being done.
Among the rest the negro was dragged upon the deck. He begged and

implored that his life might be spared, promising to tell all
that might be asked of him. L'Olonoise questioned him, and when

he had squeezed him dry, waved his hand coldly, and the poor
black went with the rest. Only one man was spared; him he sent to

the governor of Havana with a message that henceforth he would
give no quarter to any Spaniard whom he might meet in arms--a

message which was not an empty threat.
The rise of l'Olonoise was by no means rapid. He worked his way

up by dint of hard labor and through much ill fortune. But by and
by, after many reverses, the tide turned, and carried him with

it from one success to another, without let or stay, to the
bitter end.

Cruising off Maracaibo, he captured a rich prize laden with a
vast amount of plate and ready money, and there conceived the

design of descending upon the powerful town of Maracaibo itself.
Without loss of time he gathered together five hundred picked

scoundrels from Tortuga, and taking with him one Michael de Basco
as land captain, and two hundred more buccaneers whom he

commanded, down he came into the Gulf of Venezuela and upon the
doomed city like a blast of the plague. Leaving their vessels,

the buccaneers made a land attack upon the fort that stood at the
mouth of the inlet that led into Lake Maracaibo and guarded the

city.
The Spaniards held out well, and fought with all the might that

Spaniards possess; but after a fight of three hours all was given
up and the garrison fled, spreading terror and confusion before

them. As many of the inhabitants of the city as could do so
escaped in boats to Gibraltar, which lies to the southward, on

the shores of Lake Maracaibo, at the distance of some forty
leagues or more.