and all
but L'Ollonais were killed. The captain escaped, after being wounded, by
smearing blood and sand over his face and hiding himself amongst his dead
companions. Disguised as a Spaniard he entered the city of Campeachy,
where bonfires and other manifestations of public relief were being held,
to express the joy of the citizens at the news of the death of their
terror, L'Ollonais.

Meeting with some French slaves, the fugitive planned with them to escape
in the night in a canoe, this being successfully carried out, they
eventually arrived back at Tortuga, the pirate stronghold. Here the
enterprising captain stole a small vessel, and again started off "on the
account," plundering a village called De los Cagos in Cuba. The Governor
of Havana receiving word of the notorious and apparently resurrected
pirate's arrival sent a well-armed ship to take him, adding to the ship's
company a negro executioner, with orders to hang all the pirate crew with
the exception of L'Ollonais, who was to be brought back to Havana alive
and in chains.

Instead of the Spaniards taking the Frenchman, the opposite happened, and
everyone of them was murdered, including the negro hangman, with the
exception of one man, who was sent with a written message to the Governor
to tell him that in future L'Ollonais would kill every Spaniard he met
with.

Joining with a famous filibuster, Michael de Basco, L'Ollonais soon
organized a more important expedition, consisting of a fleet of eight
vessels and 400 men. Sailing to the Gulf of Venezuela in 1667, they
entered the lake, destroying the fort that stood to guard the entrance.
Thence sailing to the city of Maracaibo they found all the inhabitants had
fled in terror. The filibusters caught many of the inhabitants hiding in
the neighbouring woods, and killed numbers of them in their attempts to
force from the rest the hiding-places of their treasure. They next marched
upon and attacked the town of Gibraltar, which was valiantly defended by
the Spaniards, until the evening, when, having lost 500 men killed, they
surrendered. For four weeks this town was pillaged, the inhabitants
murdered, while torture and rape were daily occurrences. At last, to the
relief of the wretched inhabitants, the buccaneers, with a huge booty,
sailed away to Corso Island, a place of rendezvous of the French
buccaneers. Here they divided their spoil, which totalled the great sum of
260,000 pieces of eight, which, when divided