“‘Little pathways through the forest guided him safely at last to the city.
“‘The consternation caused by his tidings was dreadful; but while the women and children were hiding the treasures, the governor himself had collected every man able to carry arms.
“‘They cut down trees and formed ambuscades.
“‘But when next day Morgan, with his army of nearly a thousand fiends incarnate, came up, they avoided these, and came upon the doomed city by a more circuitous route.
“‘The battle lasted for nearly four hours, and was both desperate and bloody.
“‘Then came the capture and the sack.’”
My friend Captain Reeves paused just here.
“I have not the heart,” he said, “to read to you an account of the torture of men, women, and children—it is harrowing in the extreme—nor of the foul and awful crimes the pirates committed before hurrying southwards with their booty for fear of being cut off.”
“‘But,’ says my ancestor, Bassanto, ‘the pirates quarrelled among themselves now, reducing Morgan’s fleet to only nine ships, with about five hundred men.
“‘Yet so daring was the fellow that he determined, even with this handful, to attack, sack, and plunder the wealthy town of Puerto Velo.