set the
torch to every house in the place if it was not ransomed by a large
sum of money which he demanded. With this booty he set sail for
Tortuga, where he arrived safely--and the problem 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.

[Illustration: Capture of the Galleon

_Illustration from_
BUCCANEERS AND MAROONERS OF THE SPANISH MAIN

_by_ Howard Pyle

_Originally published in_
HARPER'S MAGAZINE, _August and September_, 1887]

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 i