Spanish forces; of the capture and sacking of
Maracaibo, and three large men-of-war now lay in the channel below the
town which led from the lake into the sea. And more than this, the
castle which defended the entrance to the lake, and which the pirates
had found empty when they arrived, was now well manned and supplied with
a great many cannon, so that for once in their lives these wicked
buccaneers were almost discouraged. Their little ships could not stand
against the men-of-war; and in any case they could not pass the castle,
which was now prepared to blow them to pieces if they should come near
enough.

But in the midst of these disheartening circumstances, the pirate leader
showed what an arrogant, blustering dare-devil he was, for, instead of
admitting his discomfiture and trying to make terms with the Spaniards,
he sent a letter to the admiral of the ships, in which he stated that if
he did not allow him a free passage out to sea he would burn every house
in Maracaibo. To this insolent threat, the Spanish admiral replied in a
long letter, in which he told Morgan that if he attempted to leave the
lake he would fire upon his ships, and, if necessary, follow them out to
sea, until not a stick of one of them should be left. But in the great
magnanimity of his soul he declared that he would allow Morgan to sail
away freely, provided he would deliver all the booty he had captured,
together with the prisoners and slaves, and promise to go home and
abandon buccaneering forever. In case he declined these terms, the
admiral declared he would come up the channel in boats filled with his
soldiers and put every pirate to the sword.

When Morgan received this letter, he called his men together in the
public square of the town, and asked them what they would do, and when
these fellows heard that they were asked to give up all their booty,
they unanimously voted that they would perish rather than do such an
unmanly thing as that. So it was agreed that they would fight themselves
out of the lake of Maracaibo, or stay there, dead or alive, as the case
might be.

Chapter XIX

A Tight Place for Morgan

At this important crisis again turned up the man with an idea. This was
an inventive buccaneer, who proposed to Morgan that they should take a
medium-sized ship which they had captured at the other end of the lake,
and make a fire-ship of her. In order that the Spaniards might not
suspect the character of this incendiar