The treacherous Spaniards beseeched them plaintively not to kill their cows, offering to sell them cattle, or furnish them with food. The Buccaneers, with all the good faith of seamen, replied that they would give a crown and a-half for each ox, and that the seller could make his own profit besides on the hide and the tallow. During this time, which was planned to give time for the operation, the Spanish troops were turning the flank of the enemy, and had now surrounded the small band on all sides. They interrupted the conversation by breaking out of the wood, with shots and cries of "Mata, mata"—"kill, kill," imagining they could cut to pieces so small a force without a struggle. The Buccaneers, differing from them in opinion, faced about with good heart, threw themselves into a square, and beat a slow retreat to the forest, keeping up a rolling fire from all four sides of their brave phalanx.
The Spaniards, considering the retreat a sure proof of despair and fear, attacked them with great courage, but great loss. The Buccaneers losing no men, while the Spaniards fell thick and fast, cried out, in imprudent bravado, that they were only trying to frighten them, and put no balls in their muskets. This jest cost them dear, for the Spaniards had been only aiming high, wishing to kill them on the spot and to make no prisoners. They now tried to maim as well as kill, and soon wounded so many in the legs that the Buccaneers were obliged to retreat to a clump of trees, where they stood at bay, and from whence the Spaniards did not dare to beat them. They then began to prepare to carry off their dead and wounded to the vessels, but seeing a small party of Spaniards piercing one of the bodies with their swords, they fired upon them, charged them, and drove them off, tracking their way by their dead, and then retreated, killing the cattle and bearing them off in sorrowful triumph to their vessels. The very next day, at the first light, Morgan, furious to revenge this treachery of the Spaniards, landed himself at the head of 200 men, and entered the woods, visiting the scene of the last night's skirmish. But the Spaniards had long since fled, discovering that in driving cattle towards the shore as a lure for the Buccaneer, they only brought destruction upon themselves, and a dangerous enemy nearer to their homes and treasures. Morgan, finding his search useless, returned to his ship, having first burned down all the deserted huts he could find: "Returning," says Esquemeling, "somewhat more satisfied in his mind for having done considerable damage to the enemy, which was always his ardent desire."
The day after, deciding not to venture an attack upon Bourg d'Asso, Morgan, impatient at the delay of his vessels, resolved to sail without them, and visit Savona, hoping there to meet his lingering companions. Alarming the people of St. Domingo, he coasted round Hispaniola. He determined to wait eight days at Savona, and, weary of rest, still wanting provisions, he sent some boats and 150 men to plunder the towns round St. Domingo, but they, finding the Spaniards vigilant and desperate, gave up the enterprise as hopeless, and returned empty-handed to endure the curses and sneers of their commander. Morgan now held a council of war, for provisions were very scanty and time was going. The eight ships did not arrive, and all agreed, with their seven small vessels and their 300 men, some place of importance might still be taken. Morgan had hitherto resolved to cruise about the Caraccas and plunder the towns and villages, mere hen-roost robbing and footpad work, compared with the enterprise proposed by one of his French captains amid great applause.
This captain was Pierre le Picard, the matelot of the famous Lolonnois when he took Maracaibo: he it was who had steered the vessels over the bar, and had served both as pilot at sea and guide on land; he reefed and fought, and could handle a rope as well as a musket. He now proposed a second attack upon the same place, and, with all the rude eloquence of sincerity, proved the facility of the attempt, and the riches that lay within their reach. As he spoke good English that could be understood by all, and was, moreover, much esteemed by Morgan, the scheme for a new campaign was at once rapturously approved. He disclosed in the council all the entries, passages, forces, and means. A charter-party was drawn up, containing a clause, that if the rest of the fleet joined them before they had taken a fortress, they should be allowed to share like the rest.
Having left a letter at Savona, buried in the usual way, the Buccaneers set sail for Curaçoa, stopping after some days' sail at the island of Omba, to take in water and provisions. This place was distant some twelve leagues from Maracaibo. Here they stayed twenty-four hours, buying goats of the natives for hanks of thread and linen. Sheep, lambs, and kids were the only products of the island, which abounded with spiders whose bite produced madness, unless the sufferer was tied hands and feet, and left without food for a night and a day. The fleet set sail in the night, to prevent the islanders discovering the object of their voyage.
The next morning they sighted the small islands that lie at the entrance of the lake of Maracaibo, anchoring out of sight of the Vigilia, in hopes to escape notice, but were observed by the sentries, whose signal gave the Spaniards ample time for defence. The fleet remained becalmed, unable to reach the bar till four o'clock in the afternoon. The canoes were instantly manned, in order to take the Bar Fort, rebuilt since Picard's last visit. Its guns played upon the boats as they pulled to land. Morgan exhorted his men to be brave and not to give way—for he expected the Spaniards would defend themselves desperately, seeing their fire was so rolling and incessant that the fort seemed like the crater of a small volcano, and they could now see that the huts round the wall had been burnt and removed, to leave them no protection or shelter. "The dispute continued very hot, being managed with great courage from morning till dark night."
That latterly the fighting died away to occasional shots is evident, for, at six o'clock when it grew dusk, Morgan reconnoitred the fort, and found it deserted. The cessation of the fire had already roused their suspicions. Suspecting treachery, Morgan searched the place to see if any lighted fuses had been placed near the powder, and a division was employed to enter the place before the main body. There was no lack of volunteers for this experimental and cat's-paw work. Morgan himself clambered up first. As they expected, they found a lighted match, and a dark train of powder communicating with the magazine. A little later and the whole band had perished together. Morgan himself snatched up the match. This fort was a redoubt of five toises high, six long, and three round. In the magazine they found 3,000 pounds of gunpowder that would have been wasted had the place been blown up; fourteen pieces of cannon, of eight, twelve, and fourteen pounds calibre, and abundance of fire-pots, hand-grenades, and carcases; twenty-four muskets and thirty pikes and bandoliers had been left by the runaways. The fort was only accessible by an iron ladder, which could be drawn up into the guard-room. But courage requires no ladder, and, like love, can always find out a way. When they had once examined the place, the Buccaneers broke down the parapet, spiked the cannon, threw them over the walls, and burnt the gun-carriages.
The Spaniards waited in vain for the roar of their bursting mine. Their own city was rocking beneath their feet; a more dreadful visitation than the earthquake or the hurricane was at their doors. At daybreak the fleet sailed up the lake, the ruined fort smoking behind them. Making great haste, they arrived at Maracaibo the next day, having first divided among themselves the arms and ammunition of the fort. The water being very low and the shoals numerous, they disembarked into their boats, with a few small cannon. From some cavaliers whom they could see on the walls they believed that the Spaniards were fortifying themselves. The Buccaneers therefore landed at some distance from the town, anchoring and disembarking amid discharges of their own cannon, intending to clear the thickets on the shore. Their men they divided into two divisions, in order to embarrass the enemy by a double attack.
But these precautions were useless. The timid people had already fled into the woods; only the beggars, who feared no plunderers, and the sick, who were praying for death, remained in Maracaibo. The brave fled with the coward, the monk with the sinner, the thief from the thieves, the soldiers from the seamen, the Catholic from the dreaded Protestant, and the Spaniard from the enemies of his name and race. The sick were expecting death, and cared not if it came by the hand of the doctor or the Buccaneer; the beggar hoped to benefit by those who could not covet, and might pity, their rags. "A few miserable folk, who had nothing to lose," says Esquemeling, "alone remained." Crippled slaves, not worth removing, lay in the streets; the dying groaned untended in the hospital. Children fled from parents, and parents from children; rich old age was left to die in spite of all the inducements of avarice. The prostitute fled to escape dishonour, and the murderer to avoid bloodshed.
The houses were empty, the doors open, the chambers stripped of every movable, costly or precious. The first care of the invaders was to search every corner for prisoners, the next to secure, each party as they arrived, the richest palaces for their barracks. The palaces were their dens, the churches their prisons; everything they defiled and polluted, the loathsome things they made still more horrible, the holy they in some degree contaminated. At sea they were brave, obedient, self-denying, religious in formula (half the world goes no further), determined, and irresistible; on land cruel, bloody, rebellious, and ferocious. At sea they exceeded most men in the practice of the sterner virtues, on land they were demons of wrath, devils of drunkenness and lust, mercenaries and outlaws in their bearing and their actions. The three former days of terror had sapped the courage of the bravest, and alarm and fear had, by a common panic, induced the inhabitants to hide the merchandise in the woods. The men who fled had had fathers and children killed and tortured in the first expedition. Friends, still maimed by the rack, increased their fears by their narrations. The Buccaneers seemed a judgment from God, irresistible and unavertable. The desire to defend riches seems to be a weaker principle in the human mind than the desire to obtain them. Great conquerors have generally been poorer than the nations they have conquered.