of that great buccaneer: that if he
undertook enterprises so desperate as this, he yet laid his plans
so well that they never went altogether amiss. Moreover, the very
desperation of his successes was of such a nature that no man could
suspect that he would dare to undertake such things, and accordingly his
enemies were never prepared to guard against his attacks. Aye, had he
but worn the king's colors and served under the rules of honest war, he
might have become as great and as renowned as Admiral Blake himself.

But all that is neither here nor there; what I have to tell you now is
that Captain Morgan in this open boat with his twenty mates reached the
Cape of Salmedina toward the fall of day. Arriving within view of the
harbor they discovered the plate fleet at anchor, with two men-of-war
and an armed galley riding as a guard at the mouth of the harbor, scarce
half a league distant from the other ships. Having spied the fleet in
this posture, the pirates presently pulled down their sails and rowed
along the coast, feigning to be a Spanish vessel from Nombre de Dios. So
hugging the shore, they came boldly within the harbor, upon the opposite
side of which you might see the fortress a considerable distance away.

Being now come so near to the consummation of their adventure, Captain
Morgan required every man to make an oath to stand by him to the last,
whereunto our hero swore as heartily as any man aboard, although his
heart, I must needs confess, was beating at a great rate at the approach
of what was to happen. Having thus received the oaths of all his
followers, Captain Morgan commanded the surgeon of the expedition that,
when the order was given, he, the medico, was to bore six holes in the
boat, so that, it sinking under them, they might all be compelled to
push forward, with no chance of retreat. And such was the ascendancy of
this man over his followers, and such was their awe of him, that not one
of them uttered even so much as a murmur, though what he had commanded
the surgeon to do pledged them either to victory or to death, with no
chance to choose between. Nor did the surgeon question the orders he had
received, much less did he dream of disobeying them.

By now it had fallen pretty dusk, whereupon, spying two fishermen in a
canoe at a little distance, Captain Morgan demanded of them in Spanish
which vessel of those at anchor in the harbor was the vice admiral, for
that he had dispatches for the captain