nobody knew how it
happened--a spark of fire got into the powder magazine, and the ship
blew up, sending the lifeless bodies of three hundred English sailors,
and the French prisoners, high into the air. The only persons on board
who escaped were Morgan and his officers who were in the cabin close to
the stern of the vessel, at some distance from the magazine.

This terrible accident threw the pirate fleet into great confusion for a
time; but Morgan soon recovered himself, and, casting about to see what
was the best thing to be done, it came into his head that he would act
the part of the wolf in the fable of the wolf and the lamb. As there
was no way of finding out how the magazine happened to explode, he took
the ground that the French prisoners whom he had shut up in the hold,
had thrown a lighted match into the magazine, wishing thus to revenge
themselves even though they should, at the same time, lose their own
lives. The people of the French ship bitterly opposed any such view of
the case, but their protestations were of no use; they might declare as
much as they pleased that it was impossible for them to make the waters
muddy, being lower down in the stream than the wolfish pirate who was
accusing them, but it availed nothing. Morgan sprang upon them and their
ship, and sent them to Jamaica, where, upon his false charge, they were
shut up in prison, and so remained for a long time.

Such atrocious wickedness as the treatment of the nuns and monks,
described in this chapter, would never have been countenanced in any
warfare between civilized nations. But Morgan's pirates were not making
war; they were robbers and murderers on a grand scale. They had no right
to call themselves civilized; they were worse than barbarians.

[Illustration: "Morgan began to upbraid them, and ordered them taken
below."--p. 151.]

Chapter XVIII

A Piratical Aftermath

Morgan's destination was the isle of Savona, near which a great Spanish
fleet was expected to pass, and here he hoped to make some rich prizes.
But when he got out to sea he met with contrary and dangerous winds,
which delayed him a long time, and eventually when he arrived at Savona,
after having landed at various places, where he pillaged, murdered, and
burned, according to the extent of his opportunities, he found at least
one-half of his men and ships had not arrived. With the small force
which he now had with him he could not set out to attack a Spanish