ed, or rather rowed"
downstream, with the ebb, the Spanish prisoners prayed to be taken
aboard, lest the Indians should take them and torture them all to death.
"We had much ado to find a sufficient number of boats for ourselves,"
says Ringrose, for the Indians had carried many of the canoas away. Yet
the terror of their situation so wrought upon the Spaniards that they
climbed on to logs, or crude rafts, or into old canoas, "and by that
means shifted so ... as to come along with us." The island Chepillo, off
the mouth of the Cheapo River, had been named as the general rendezvous,
but most of the buccaneers were to spend several miserable days before
they anchored there. One canoa containing ten Frenchmen, was capsized,
to the great peril of the Frenchmen, who lost all their weapons.
Ringrose was separated from the company, drenched to the skin, half
starved, and very nearly lynched by some Spaniards. His 19th of April
was sufficiently stirring to have tired him of going a-roving till his
death. He put out "wet and cold," at dawn; was shipwrecked at ten; saved
the lives of five Spaniards at noon; "took a survey," or drew a sketch
of the coast, an hour later; set sail again by four, was taken by the
Spaniards and condemned to death at nine; was pardoned at ten; sent away
"in God's name," "vaya ustad con Dios," at eleven; and was at sea again
"wet and cold," by midnight. Sharp's party was the most fortunate, for
as they entered the bay of Panama they came to an island "a very
pleasant green Place," off which a barque of thirty tons came to anchor,
"not long before it was dark." The island had a high hummock of land
upon it with a little hut, and a stack for a bonfire, at the top. A
watchman, an old man, lived in this hut, looking out over the sea for
pirates, with orders to fire his beacon, to warn the men on the Main if
a strange sail appeared. The pirates caught this watchman before the
fire was lit. They learned from him that those at Panama had not yet
heard of their coming. Shortly after they had captured the watchman, the
little barque aforesaid, came to anchor, and furled her sails. Two of
Sharp's canoas crept out, "under the shore," and laid her aboard "just
as it began to be duskish." She proved to be a Panama boat, in use as a
troop transport. She had just landed some soldiers on the Main, to quell
some Indians, who had been raiding on the frontier. Her crew were
negroes, Indians, and mulattoes. Most of the buccan