The fight continued all night, and when the calm daylight broke on the worn soldiers, the Buccaneers saw with sparkling eyes that the gabions had smouldered through, and that the earth had fallen down in large heaps into the fosse. The breaches in many places were practicable. The armour had fallen piece-meal from their giant adversary, and he now stood before them bare, wounded, and defenceless. The Buccaneers, creeping within musket shot of the walls, shot down the gunners in the breaches to which the cannon had been dragged by the governor's orders during the night. Divided into two bands, one party kept up a constant fire on the guns, and the other watched the motions of the enemy. About noon they advanced to a spot which the governor himself defended, belted round with twenty-five brave Spaniards, armed with pikes, halberds, swords, and muskets. They advanced under a dreadful hail of fire and lead, the defenders casting down flaming pots full of combustible matter and "odious smells," which destroyed many of the English. But we do not know how smells could drive back men who would have marched through hell if it had been the shortest way to Panama.
Nothing could equal the unflinching courage of the Spaniards—they disputed every inch of ground—they yielded slowly like wounded lions when the hunters narrow their circles. They showered stones and all available missiles on their assailants, only wishing to kill a Buccaneer, but feeling that resistance was hopeless; some, rather than yield, threw themselves from the cliffs into the sea, and few survived the fall. As the Buccaneers won their way to the castle the Spaniards retreated to the garde du corps, where they entrenched themselves with two cannon; to the last the governor refused quarter, and at last fell shot through the brain. The few who remained surrendered when the guns were taken and would have been turned against them.
Only fourteen men were found unhurt in the fort and about nine or ten wounded, who had hid themselves among the dead. They told Morgan that they were all that were left of a garrison of 314 soldiers. The governor, seeing that he was lost, had despatched the survivors to Panama to alarm the city, and remained behind to die. No officer was left alive; they had been the first to set their men the example of a glorious death. It appeared that a Buccaneer deserter, an Irishman, whom Morgan had not even informed of his design, had come to the port, and assured them of the attack on La Rancheria, and the contemplated movement on Panama. The governor of that place had instantly sent to Chagres a reinforcement of 164 men, with ammunition and provisions, and had placed ambuscades along the river. He was at that very moment, they said, awaiting them in the savannah with 3600 men: of these 2000 were infantry, 400 cavalry, and 600 Indians. He had also employed 200 muleteers and hunters to collect a drove of 1000 wild cattle to drive down upon the invaders.
"The taking of this castle," says Esquemeling, "cost the pirates excessively dear, in comparison to what they were wont to lose, and their toil and labour was greater than at the conquest of the Isle of St. Catherine." On numbering their thinned ranks, many voices were silent at the roll call. More than 100 men were found to be dead, and more than seventy grievously wounded. There were sixty who could not rise, and many in the ranks wore on their arms strips of the Spanish colours, or had their heads bound round with bloody cloths. The prisoners they compelled to drag their own dead to the edge of the cliffs and cast them among the shattered bodies on the beach, and then to bury them where the sea could not wash them out of their graves, or the birds devour them. The castle chapel they turned into an hospital for the wounded, and the female slaves were employed to tend them, for the surgeons in the heat of battle had only had time to amputate a limb or bind an artery.
CHAPTER II.
CONQUEST OF PANAMA.
March from Chagres—Famine—Ambuscade of Indians—Wild bulls driven down upon them—Victory—Battle of the Forts—Takes the City—Burns part of it—Cruelties—Debauchery—Retreat with prisoners—Virtue of the Spanish prisoner, and her sufferings—Ransom—Division of booty—Treason of Morgan—Escapes by night to Jamaica—Dispersion of the Fleet—Morgan's subsequent fate.
The bodies of their comerades, who had died that they who survived might conquer, were buried, not without some tears even from these rude men, in large (plague pit) graves, dug by the prisoners. The women were violated in the first fury of the sack. During their plunder they found a great quantity of provisions and ammunitions stored up for the use of the fleet. Their next act was to repair the fort and render it tenable.
Morgan, instantly informed of the fall of Chagres, did not remain long behind. Having first collected all the Indian wheat and cassava he could carry, he embarked his prisoners and provisions, taking with him Don Joseph Ramirez de Leiba, the governor, and the chief officers. The cannon he spiked or threw into the sea, in places where he might recover them, intending to return and fortify the place, as a stronghold if his design on Panama failed. The forts, and church, and house he fired, with the exception of the castle of Santa Teresa.