was solved.

After him came one Mansvelt, a buccaneer of lesser note, who first made
a descent upon the isle of Saint Catharine, now Old Providence, which he
took, and, with this as a base, made an unsuccessful descent upon Neuva
Granada and Cartagena. His name might not have been handed down to us
along with others of greater fame had he not been the master of that
most apt of pupils, the great Captain Henry Morgan, most famous of
all the buccaneers, one time governor of Jamaica, and knighted by King
Charles II.

After Mansvelt followed the bold John Davis, native of Jamaica, where he
sucked in the lust of piracy with his mother's milk. With only fourscore
men, he swooped down upon the great city of Nicaragua in the darkness of
the night, silenced the sentry with the thrust of a knife, and then
fell to pillaging the churches and houses "without any respect or
veneration."

Of course it was but a short time until the whole town was in an uproar
of alarm, and there was nothing left for the little handful of men to do
but to make the best of their way to their boats. They were in the town
but a short time, but in that time they were able to gather together and
to carry away money and jewels to the value of fifty thousand pieces of
eight, besides dragging off with them a dozen or more notable prisoners,
whom they held for ransom.

And now one appeared upon the scene who reached a far greater height
than any had arisen to before. This was Francois l'Olonoise, who
sacked the great city of Maracaibo and the town of Gibraltar. Cold,
unimpassioned, pitiless, his sluggish blood was never moved by one
single pulse of human warmth, his icy heart was never touched by one ray
of mercy or one spark of pity for the hapless wretches who chanced to
fall into his bloody hands.

Against him the governor of Havana sent out a great war vessel, and with
it a negro executioner, so that there might be no inconvenient delays of
law after the pirates had been captured. But l'Olonoise did not wait for
the coming of the war vessel; he went out to meet it, and he found it
where it lay riding at anchor in the mouth of the river Estra. At the
dawn of the morning he made his attack sharp, unexpected, decisive. In a
little while the Spaniards were forced below the hatches, and the vessel
was taken. Then came the end. One by one the poor shrieking wretches
were dragged up from below, and one by one they were butchered in cold
blood, while l'Olono