Captain William Kidd and Others of the Buccaneers

by John S. C. Abbott

Even the demoniac pirates were so panic-stricken that they dared not by a charge rush into the very jaws of destruction. Every instant their comrades were dropping. There was no time for thought. Those not yet struck leaped into the boats and pushed from the shore, leaving the dying and the dead in the water and upon the sand. Still the pelting storm pursued them till they were beyond gun-shot reach.

Lolonois, the greatest villain of them all, escaped unharmed. Did God preserve him that he might drain to the dregs the cup of mental and bodily misery which he had so often presented to the lips of others? In view of what he had yet to endure, he might indeed have deemed it one of the richest of mercies had a bullet pierced heart or brain, and laid him instantly with the dead.

The wretch had sufficient intelligence to perceive that he was ruined. There was no longer any hope of ravaging Nicaragua. His provisions were exhausted. He had no doubt that the whole coast was armed against them. As by lightning-bolts he had lost nearly one-half of his crews. Desponding, starving, he divided his company into two bands, to sail where they could, to save themselves from perishing by hunger.

Lolonois, with thirty or forty men ran along the coast toward South America, till they reached the region of Carthagena. They were few and feeble, and feared to land. The atrocities committed by the pirates were everywhere known. Upon every league of the coast either the Spaniards or the Indians were watching for their approach, ready to give the general alarm, and to summon all who could be rallied to repel them.

Their water-casks were empty. They must obtain fresh water or perish of thirst. Having passed the Gulf of Darien, he ventured to land, taking his whole force with him. It so chanced, or Providence so ordered it, that he landed on the territory of one of the fiercest tribes of Indians known in all that region. They were called Bravos. The Spaniards had never been able to subdue them. These fierce and cunning savages surrounded the pirates and shot down or captured the whole band. Still not a bullet struck Lolonois. He was reserved for another doom. Most of the captured pirates were burned alive. But the savages thought that too merciful a death for the leader of the band.

They bound him to a tree. Hour after hour, according to their custom, they tortured him, being careful to prolong his sufferings by not piercing any vital point. Every device of savage ingenuity was resorted to, which might extort agony from his quivering nerves. There was no one to pity. Even humanity says he merited it all. At last the savages, howling in frenzied merriment around him, and raising new shouts whenever they could force from him new shrieks of agony, weary with the demoniac pastime, hewed off one of his arms and threw it into the fire. They then hewed off the other and committed it to the flames. The same was done with his legs. Then his head was cut off, and with his memberless body was consumed to ashes. Such was the earthly life, and such the earthly death of Francis Lolonois. We say the earthly life. There is another life. There is a second death. Lolonois still lives in the spirit-land. What is his character there?

The pirates who remained upon the island, weary of waiting for the boats, were quite in despair. But one morning their eyes were cheered by the sight of a very large ship passing near by. Their signals were seen and the ship hove to. It proved to be a pirate bound for the sack of Carthagena. The captain was delighted to add a hundred desperate fellows to his gang. The pirates, who had now been ten months upon the island, and were in a state of great despondency, destitution, and suffering, were as glad as such wicked men could be in this escape from their miseries, and this new opportunity to renew their ravages.

There were several Carthagenas in the various provinces of the New World. The one they were to attack was in Honduras, on the river Segoria, which empties into Cape Gracios à Dios. Their plan was to cast anchor in the mouth of the river, and ascend the stream in boats. The piratic captain was greatly elated, for he had now at his command between five and six hundred men.

They reached the mouth of the river in safety. A few men were left in charge of the ship. Over five hundred were crowded into the boats. There was no space for storing provisions; neither was it thought necessary. It was supposed that an ample supply of food would be found in the villages on the river banks. But the Indians transmitted intelligence with almost the rapidity of telegraphic dispatches. From village to village the tidings ran.

The Indians, conscious of their inability to contend with the well-armed pirates, fled. They took with them all the food they could. The rest they destroyed. The invaders found themselves reduced almost to starvation. They ate roots and herbs, and even the leaves of the trees. A blazing tropical sun poured its rays down upon their crowded open boats, blistering their skin with the intense heat. Sickness came, with languor, pain, wretchedness. Their own crimes were chastising them with scorpion lashes.