This singular and inexplicable assault threw the army into great confusion. For a moment, these reckless men were staggered. It seems strange that but eight of the pirates were killed and ten wounded by this shower of arrows. After a few moments’ delay, the pirates moved cautiously forward, threading the narrow tunnel, through which but two could walk abreast, until they came out upon a very rough plain on the other side, encumbered with huge rocks and a growth of gigantic trees. To this vantage-ground the Indians had retreated, and here they seemed disposed to make a stand.
Quite a fierce battle ensued. The Indians could be seen, in large numbers, dodging from rock to rock, and from tree to tree. They fought with great bravery. Their chief was a very handsome young fellow, gorgeously dressed, and with a very brilliant coronet of variegated feathers. He seemed to have no fear. At length, in his zeal, he plunged headlong upon the pirates, utterly regardless of numbers, and endeavored to thrust his javelin through one a little in the advance. The blow was parried, and he was instantly shot down.
As he was seen to fall, there was a loud cry from his followers and, without discharging another shaft, they all fled. The pirates impetuously pursued. The fugitives could not be overtaken. A few of the boldest concealed themselves behind trees and thickets, whence they could make good their retreat, and worried the pirates with a random fire, which sorely wounded a few, without accomplishing any important results.
The buccaneers entered soon upon a broad, treeless prairie. Here they halted to tend the wounded. At some distance before them there was another rocky and wooded eminence. The Indians, who seemed to be swarming there, were evidently preparing for another battle. A party of fifty men was sent, by a circuitous route, to attack them in the rear. Their watchful eyes detected the movement. With nimble feet, they fled, shouting to their assailants, “To the plain, to the plain, you English dogs.”
The pirates rightly interpreted these words to mean that on the plain before Panama a large body of Spaniards was assembled, and that there the great struggle was to take place. Many Spaniards were with the Indians. At this point, which was but a few miles from Panama, they disappeared. The next night there came one of those flooding rains with which tropical lands were so often deluged. The pirates in vain sought shelter from the drenching storm. There was the blackness of darkness, with thunderings and lightnings, and the howlings of the tornado. There were many plantations on the route where houses and huts had been reared. But the Indians had applied the torch. Every building was in ashes. The cattle were driven away. All provisions were removed or consumed. These wretched men, on their fiend-like mission, were still starving.
The next morning, which was the ninth of their journey, the rain ceased. Heavy clouds floated through the sky, darkening the sun, and thus enabling them to march sheltered from its scorching rays. A well-mounted troop of twenty Spaniards appeared at some distance in the advance, watching all the movements of the invaders. During the day they came to quite a high mountain, which it was necessary to cross. From its summit they first caught sight of the Pacific Ocean, and of the Bay of Panama, upon whose shores the city of the same name was situated. In the bay there was a large Spanish ship riding at anchor. Six boats were under sail, directing their course toward the islands of Tavoga and Tavogilla, which were about eighteen miles distant.
At this sight the pirates raised shouts of joy. Never doubting their own prowess, they considered their toils as ended, and the city, with all its treasures, as already in their possession. At the foot of the mountain there was a large grassy plain, over which thousands of cattle were grazing, cows, horses, bulls, mules, and donkeys. With a rush, the piratic gangs descended the mountain, and, with the voracity of famished wolves, fell upon the cattle.
“One shot a horse. Another felled a cow. But the greater part slaughtered the mules, which were most numerous. Some kindled fires; others collected wood; and the strongest hunted the cattle, while the invalids slew and skinned and flayed. The whole plain was soon alight with a hundred fires. The hungry men cut off lumps of flesh, carbonaded them in the flame, and ate them half raw, with incredible haste and ferocity. ‘They resembled,’ Esquemeling says, ‘rather cannibals than Christians, the blood running down their beards to the middle of their bodies.’”[A]
[A] Monarchs of the Main, vol. ii. p. 114.