pirates, as he thought,
securely in his grasp, he would relinquish nothing, but would sweep
them from the face of the sea once and forever.

That was an unlucky determination for the Spaniards to reach, for
instead of paralyzing the pirates with fear, as he expected it would
do, it simply turned their mad courage into as mad desperation.

A great vessel that they had taken with the town of Maracaibo was
converted into a fire ship, manned with logs of wood in montera caps
and sailor jackets, and filled with brimstone, pitch, and palm leaves
soaked in oil. Then out of the lake the pirates sailed to meet the
Spaniards, the fire ship leading the way, and bearing down directly
upon the admiral's vessel. At the helm stood volunteers, the most
desperate and the bravest of all the pirate gang, and at the ports
stood the logs of wood in montera caps. So they came up with the
admiral, and grappled with his ship in spite of the thunder of all his
great guns, and then the Spaniard saw, all too late, what his opponent
really was.

[Illustration: Morgan at Porto Bello

_Illustration from_
MORGAN

_by_ E. C. Stedman

_Originally published in_
HARPER'S MAGAZINE, _December, 1888_]

He tried to swing loose, but clouds of smoke and almost instantly a
mass of roaring flames enveloped both vessels, and the admiral was
lost. The second vessel, not wishing to wait for the coming of the
pirates, bore down upon the fort, under the guns of which the cowardly
crew sank her, and made the best of their way to the shore. The third
vessel, not having an opportunity to escape, was taken by the pirates
without the slightest resistance, and the passage from the lake was
cleared. So the buccaneers sailed away, leaving Maracaibo and
Gibraltar prostrate a second time.

And now Captain Morgan determined to undertake another venture, the
like of which had never been equaled in all of the annals of
buccaneering. This was nothing less than the descent upon and the
capture of Panama, which was, next to Cartagena, perhaps, the most
powerful and the most strongly fortified city in the West Indies.

In preparation for this venture he obtained letters of marque from the
governor of Jamaica, by virtue of which elastic commission he began
immediately to gather around him all material necessary for the
undertaking.

When it became known abroad that the great Captain Morgan was about
undertaking an adventure that was to eclipse all that was ever done
b