attack from that quarter. The guns were massed to landward,
and no sooner was this done than Morgan sailed up through the channel
with but little loss. Why the Spaniards did not close the passage with a
boom does not appear. Probably they were glad to be quit of Morgan on
any terms.

A great Spanish fleet he routed by the ingenious employment of a fire-
ship. In a later expedition a strong place was taken by a curious
accident. One of the buccaneers was shot through the body with an arrow.
He drew it out, wrapped it in cotton, fired it from his musket, and so
set light to a roof and burned the town.

His raid on Panama was extraordinary for the endurance of his men. For
days they lived on the leather of bottles and belts. "Some, who were
never out of their mothers' kitchens, may ask how these pirates could eat
and digest these pieces of leather, so hard and dry? Whom I answer--that
could they once experience what hunger, or rather famine is, they would
find the way, as the pirates did." It was at the close of this march
that the Indians drove wild bulls among them; but they cared very little
for these new allies of the Spaniards: beef, in any form, was only too
welcome.

Morgan burned the fair cedar houses of Panama, but lost the plate ship
with all the gold and silver out of the churches. How he tortured a poor
wretch who chanced to wear a pair of taffety trousers belonging to his
master, with a small silver key hanging out, it is better not to repeat.
The men only got two hundred pieces-of-eight each, after all their toil,
for their Welshman was indeed a thief, and bilked his crews, no less than
he plundered the Spaniards, without remorse. Finally, he sneaked away
from the fleet with a ship or two; and it is to be feared that Captain
Morgan made rather a good thing by dint of his incredible cruelty and
villainy.

And so we leave Mr. Esquemeling, whom Captain Morgan also deserted; for
who would linger long when there is not even honour among thieves?
Alluring as the pirate's profession is, we must not forget that it had a
seamy side, and was by no means all rum and pieces-of-eight. And there
is something repulsive to a generous nature in roasting men because they
will not show you where to steal hogs.

THE SAGAS

"The general reader," says a frank critic, "hates the very name of a
Saga." The general reader, in that case, is to be pitied, and, if
possible, converted. But, just as Pascal admi