When L'Olonnois and his buccaneers entered the town of Gibraltar they found that the greater part of the inhabitants had fled, but there were many people left, and these were made prisoners as fast as they were discovered. They were all forced to go into the great church, and then the pirates, fearing that the Spaniards outside of the town might be reënforced and come back again to attack them, carried a number of cannon into the church and fortified the building. When this had been done, they felt safe and began to act as if they had been a menagerie of wild beasts let loose upon a body of defenceless men, women, and children. Not only did these wretched men rush into the houses, stealing everything valuable they could find and were able to carry away, but when they had gathered together all they could discover they tortured their poor prisoners by every cruel method they could think of, in order to make them tell where more treasures were concealed. Many [Pg 120] of these unfortunates had had nothing to hide, and therefore could give no information to their brutal inquisitors, and others died without telling what they had done with their valuables. When the town had been thoroughly searched and sifted, the pirates sent men out into the little villages and plantations in the country, and even hunters and small farmers were captured and made to give up everything they possessed which was worth taking.  
For nearly three weeks these outrageous proceedings continued, and to prove that they were lower than the brute beasts they allowed the greater number of the prisoners collected in the church, to perish of hunger. There were not provisions enough in the town for the pirates' own uses and for these miserable creatures also, and so, with the exception of a small quantity of mule flesh, which many of the prisoners could not eat, they got nothing whatever, and slowly starved.
 
When L'Olonnois and his friends had been in possession of Gibraltar for about a month, they thought it was time to leave, but their greedy souls were not satisfied with the booty they had already obtained, and they therefore sent messages to the Spaniards who were still concealed in the forests, that unless in the course of two days a ransom of ten thousand pieces of eight were paid to them, they would burn the town to the ground. No matter [Pg 121] what they thought of this heartless demand, it was not easy for the scattered citizens to collect such a sum as this, and the two days passed without the payment of the ransom, and the relentless pirates promptly carried out their threat and set the town on fire in various places. When the poor Spaniards saw this and perceived that they were about to lose even their homes, they sent to the town and promised that if the pirates would put out the fires they would pay the money. In the hope of more money, and not in the least moved by any feeling of kindness, L'Olonnois ordered his men to help put out the fires, but they were not extinguished until a quarter of the town was entirely burned and a fine church reduced to ashes.
 
When the buccaneers found they could squeeze nothing more out of the town, they went on board their ships, carrying with them all the plunder and booty they had collected, and among their spoils were about five hundred slaves, of all ages and both sexes, who had been offered an opportunity to ransom themselves, but who, of course, had no money with which to buy their freedom, and who were now condemned to a captivity worse than anything they had ever known before.
 
Now the eight ships with their demon crews sailed away over the lake toward Maracaibo. It was quite possible for them to get out to sea without [Pg 122] revisiting this unfortunate town, but as this would have been a very good thing for them to do, it was impossible for them to do it; no chance to do anything wicked was ever missed by these pirates. Consequently L'Olonnois gave orders to drop anchor near the city, and then he sent some messengers ashore to inform the already half-ruined citizens that unless they sent him thirty thousand pieces of eight he would enter their town again, carry away everything they had left, and burn the place to the ground. The poor citizens sent a committee to confer with the pirates, and while the negotiations were going on some of the conscienceless buccaneers went on shore and carried off from one of the great churches its images, pictures, and even its bells. It was at last arranged that the citizens should pay twenty thousand pieces of eight, which was the utmost sum they could possibly raise, and, in addition to this, five hundred head of beef-cattle, and the pirates promised that if this were done they would depart and molest the town no more. The money was paid, the cattle were put on board the ships, and to the unspeakable relief of the citizens, the pirate fleet sailed away from the harbor.
 
But it would be difficult to express the horror and dismay of those same citizens when, three days afterward, those pirate ships all came back again. Black despair now fell upon the town; there was [Pg 123] nothing more to be stolen, and these wretches must have repented that they had left the town standing, and had returned to burn it down. But when one man came ashore in a boat bringing the intelligence that L'Olonnois could not get his largest ship across a bar at the entrance to the lake, and that he wanted a pilot to show him the channel, then the spirits of the people went up like one great united rocket, bursting into the most beautiful coruscations of sparks and colors. There was nothing on earth that they would be so glad to furnish him as a pilot to show him how to sail away from their shores. The pilot was instantly sent to the fleet, and L'Olonnois and his devastating band departed.
 
They did not go directly to Tortuga, but stopped at a little island near Hispaniola, which was inhabited by French buccaneers, and this delay was made entirely for the purpose of dividing the booty. It seems strange that any principle of right and justice should have been regarded by these dishonest knaves, even in their relations to each other, but they had rigid rules in regard to the division of their spoils, and according to these curious regulations the whole amount of plunder was apportioned among the officers and crews of the different ships.
 
Before the regular allotment of shares was made, the claims of the wounded were fully satisfied according to their established code. For the loss of a [Pg 124] right arm a man was paid about six hundred dollars or six slaves; for the loss of a left arm, five hundred dollars, or five slaves; for a missing right leg, five hundred dollars, or five slaves; for a missing left leg, four hundred dollars, or four slaves; for an eye or a finger, one hundred dollars, or one slave. Then the rest of the money and spoils were divided among all the buccaneers without reference to what had been paid to the wounded. The shares of those who had been killed were given to friends or acquaintances, who undertook to deliver them to their families.
 
The spoils in this case consisted of two hundred and sixty thousand dollars in money and a great quantity of valuable goods, besides many slaves and precious stones and jewels. These latter were apportioned among the men in the most ridiculous manner, the pirates having no idea of the relative value of the jewels, some of them preferring large and worthless colored stones to smaller diamonds and rubies. When all their wickedly gained property had been divided, the pirates sailed to Tortuga, where they proceeded, without loss of time, to get rid of the wealth they had amassed. They ate, they drank, they gambled; they crowded the taverns as taverns have never been crowded before; they sold their valuable merchandise for a twentieth part of its value to some of the more level-headed people of the place; and having rioted, gambled, [Pg 125] and committed every sort of extravagance for about three weeks, the majority of L'Olonnois' rascally crew found themselves as poor as when they had ............