But a cruel massacre now commenced. The Buccaneers had eaten nothing for nearly two days. They made war upon all the poultry and cattle—the oldest cow was slain, the toughest rooster strangled. For several days the island was lit up with huge fires, round which the men roasted their meat, and revelled and caroused. When wood grew scarce they pulled down cottages to light their fires, and having no wine very wisely made use of water.
The day after the surrender they numbered their prisoners, and found they had collected 450 souls—seventy of the garrison, forty-three children, and thirty-one slaves. The men were all carefully disarmed, and sent to the plantations to bring in provisions; the women were left in the church to pray and weep. They next inspected all the ten batteries, wondering in their strength and exulting in their victory. The fort St. Jerome contained eight great guns and sixty muskets; the St. Matthew three guns; the Santa Teresa twenty guns and 120 muskets. The castle was very strong, and moated; impregnable on the sea side, and on the land side ascended by a narrow mountain path, while the guns on its summit commanded the port. The St. Augustine fort mounted three guns; the Platform two; the St. Salvador and another also two; the Santa Cruz three; and the St. Joseph six and twelve muskets. In the magazine they found 30,000 pounds of powder, which they at once shipped, with all the other ammunition. In the St. Jerome battery Morgan left a guard, but in all the other forts the guns were spiked and the gun-carriages burnt.
The object of his visit was still to seek. Examining the prisoners, who were now crowded in with merchants and grandees, he inquired for banditti from Panama, and three slaves stepped forward who knew every path and avenue to the city. These men he chose as guides, promising them a full Buccaneer's share of the spoil if they brought him by a secure way to the city, and, in addition, their liberty when they reached Jamaica. These volunteers consisted of two Indians and a mulatto. The former denied all knowledge of the place; the latter—a "rogue, thief, and assassin, who had deserved breaking on the wheel rather than mere garrison service"—readily accepted Morgan's propositions, and promised to serve him faithfully. He had a great ascendancy over the two Indians, and domineered over them as he pleased, without their daring to disobey a half-blood already on the point of preferment.
The next step to Panama was to capture Chagres and its castle, and Morgan at once dispatched five vessels, well equipped, with 400 men on board, to undertake this expedition, remaining himself at St. Catherine's, lest the people of Panama should be alarmed. He was to follow his van-guard in eight days, guided by the Indians, who knew Chagres. This time he and his men prudently spent in pulling manioc roots for cassava, and digging potatoes for the voyage.
The Chagres expedition was led by the same Captain Bradley who commanded at Rancheria. He had been with Mansvelt formerly, and had rendered himself famous by his exploits both among the Buccaneers and the Spaniards. He arrived in three days at Chagres, opposite Fort St. Lawrence, which was built on a mountain commanding the entrance of the river. As soon as the Spaniards saw the red flag spreading from his vessels, they displayed the royal colours of Spain, and saluted him with a volley too hasty and angry to be very destructive. The Buccaneers, according to their usual stratagem, landed at Narangui, a place a quarter of a league distant from the castle, their guide leading them through thick woods, through which they had to cut a path with their sabres. It was early morning when they landed, and requiring half a day to perform the short distance, they did not reach a hill commanding the castle till two o'clock. The mire and dirt of the road combined, with the darkness of the way, to lengthen their march. The guides served them well, but brought them at one spot so near to the castle, and in so open and bare a place, that they lost many men by the shot. In other parts the wood was so thick that they could only tell that they were near the castle by the discharge of the cannon. The hill they had now reached was not within musket range, and they were thus deprived of the use of their favourite weapon. Could they have dragged cannon so far they might have taken the place without losing a man.
The castle of Chagres was built on a high mountain at the entry of a river, and surrounded by strong wooden palisadoes banked with earth. The top of the mountain was divided into two parts, between which ran a ditch thirty feet deep; the tower had but one entrance by a drawbridge, towards the land it had four bastions, and towards the sea two more. The south wall was inaccessible crag, the north was moated by the broad river. At the foot of the hill lay a strong fort with eight guns, which commanded the river's mouth; a little lower down were two other batteries, each of six guns, all pointing the same way. At another side were two great store-houses, full of goods, brought from the inland, and near these a flight of steps, cut in the rock, led to the castle of the summit. On the west side was a small port not more than seven or eight fathoms deep, with good anchorage for small vessels, and before the hill a great rock rose from the waves, which almost covered it at low water.
The place appeared such a perfect volcano of fire, and so threatening and dangerous, that the Buccaneers, but for fear of Morgan's rage and contempt, would have at once turned back. After many disputes and much doubt and perplexity, they resolved to hazard the assault and risk their lives. When they descended from their hill into the plain, they had to throw themselves on their faces to escape the desolating shower of balls; but their marksmen, quite uncovered and without defence, shot at the Spanish gunners through the loops of the palisading, and killed all who showed themselves. This skirmishing continued till the evening, when the Buccaneers, who had lost many men, their commander having his leg broken with a cannon shot, began to waver and to think of retiring, having in vain tried to burn down the place with their fireballs, and charged up to the very walls, which they tried in vain to climb, sword in hand. When the Spaniards saw them drawing back through the dusk, in some disorder, carrying their wounded men and gnashing their teeth in rage at the dark lines of defence, they shouted out "Come on, you dogs of heretics; come on, you English devils: you shan't get to Panama this bout, for we'll serve your comerades as we have served you." The Buccaneers, astonished at their cries, now for the first time learnt that Morgan's expedition had been heard of at Panama.
Night had already begun, and the rain of bullets, shot, and Indian arrows (more deadly almost than the bullets), harassing and well-aimed, continued as grievous as by day. Taking advantage of the gloom, another party advanced to the palisadoes; the light of their burning fuses directed the aim of the Spaniards.
A singular accident of war gave the place, so briskly defended, into the hands of the assailants. A party of the French musketeers were talking together, devising a plan of advance, when a swift Indian arrow fell among them and pierced one of the speakers in the shoulder (Esquemeling says in the back and right through the body, another writer says in the eye). A thought struck the wounded man, for the wound had spurred his imagination: coolly drawing the point from his shoulder, he said to those near him, "Attendez, mes frères, je m'en vais faire périr tous les Espagnols—tous—avec cette sacré flèche" (wait a bit, my mates, I'll kill all the Spaniards—all—with this d—— arrow); so saying he drew from his pocket a handful of wild cotton, which the Buccaneers kept as lint to staunch their wounds, and wound it round the dart; then putting it in his loaded musket, from which he extracted the ball, he fired it back at the castle roof. It alighted on some dry thatch, which in a moment began to smoke, and in another second broke into a bright flame, more visible for the darkness. The Buccaneers shouted and pushed on to the attack, and the wounded men forgot their wounds. Some of the men, seeing the result of the experiment, gathered up the Indian arrows that lay thick around them, and fired them at the roofs. Many houses were soon in flames. The Spaniards, busy with the defence, did not see the fire until it had gained some head, and reaching a parcel of powder blown it up and caused ruin and consternation within the fort. If they left the walls the Buccaneers gained ground, if they left the fire the flames spread more terribly than before; the want of sufficient water increased the confusion, and while they tried to quench the conflagration, the Buccaneers set fire to the palisadoes.
Œxmelin, who was present as a surgeon at this attack of Chagres, relates an anecdote of courage which he himself witnessed, to show the indomitable fury of the assailants. One of his own friends was pierced in the eye by an Indian arrow, and came to him to beg him to pull it out, the pain was so intense and unbearable. Although a surgeon, Œxmelin had not the nerve to inflict such torture, however momentary, on a friend, and turned away in pity, upon which the hardy seaman tore out the arrow with a curse, and, binding up the wound, rushed forward to the wall. The few Buccaneers who had retreated, seeing the flames, now hurried back to the attack. The Spaniards could no longer see the enemy at whom they fired, the night was so dark and starless, while the Buccaneers shot down with the unerring aim of hunters the Spaniards, whose bodies stood out dark and well-defined against the bright background of flame. All this time, before the fire of the roofs could be extinguished, the Buccaneers had swarmed through the fosse, and, mounting upon each other's shoulders, burnt down part of the palisadoes, as we have before described, in spite of the hand grenades that were thrown from above, and which burst among them. The fire ran along the wall, leaping like a winged thing, and devoured wherever it clung, spreading with dreadful rapidity.