At this important crisis again turned up the man with an idea. This was an inventive buccaneer, who proposed to Morgan that they should take a medium-sized ship which they had captured at the other end of the lake, and make a fire-ship of her. In order that the Spaniards might not suspect the character of this incendiary craft, he proposed that they should fit her up like one of the pirate war-vessels, for in this case the Spaniards would not try to get away from her, but would be glad to have her come near enough for them to capture her.
Morgan was pleased with this plan, and the fire-ship was prepared with all haste. All the pitch, tar, and brimstone in the town were put on board of her, together with other combustibles. On the deck were placed logs of wood, which were dressed up in coats and hats to look like men, and by their sides were muskets and cutlasses. Portholes were made, and in these were placed other logs to represent[Pg 160] cannon. Thus this merchant vessel, now as inflammable as a pine knot, was made to resemble a somewhat formidable pirate ship. The rest of the fleet was made ready, the valuables and prisoners and slaves were put on board; and they all sailed boldly down toward the Spanish vessels, the fire-ship in front.
When the Spanish admiral saw this insignificant fleet approaching, he made ready to sink it to the bottom, and when the leading vessel made its way directly toward his own ship, as if with the impudent intention of boarding her, he did not fire at her, but let her come on. The few pirates on board the fire-ship ran her up against the side of the great man-of-war; and after making her fast and applying their matches, they immediately slipped overboard, and swam to one of their own vessels before the Spaniards had an idea of what had happened. The fire-ship was soon ablaze, and as the flames quickly spread, the large vessel took fire, and the people on board had scarcely time to get out of her before she sank.
The commander of one of the other ships was so much frightened by what had occurred in so short a space of time that he ran his vessel aground and wrecked her, her men jumping out into the water and making for the land. As for the other ship, the pirates boldly attacked her and captured her, [Pg 161] and as she was a very fine vessel, Morgan left his own small vessel, in which he had been commanding his fleet, and took possession of her. Thus, in a very short time, the whole state of affairs was changed. The Spaniards had no ships at all, and Morgan was in command of a very fine vessel, in which he led his triumphant fleet.
Victory is a grand thing to a pirate as it is to every human being who has been engaged in a conflict, but none of the joys of triumph could equal the sordid rapacity of Morgan and his men. They spent days in trying to recover the money and plate which were on board the sunken Spanish ships. The sterns of these projected above water, and a great deal of valuable treasure was recovered from them. The pirates worked very hard at this, although they had not the slightest idea how they were to pass the castle and get away with the plunder after they had obtained it.
When the wrecks had been stripped of everything of value, the time came for demanding a ransom for not burning the town and hanging the prisoners, and as the poor citizens knew very well what they might expect, they sent word to the admiral, who had escaped to the castle, begging him to accede to the demands of Morgan, and to let the wretched pirates go. But the admiral, Don Alonso, was a thoroughbred Spaniard, and he would listen to no [Pg 162] such cowardly suggestion. He would consent to no ransom being paid, and on no account would he allow the pirates to pass the channel. The citizens, however, who knew what was good for them, raised the money, and paid the ransom in coin and cattle, and Morgan declared that if the admiral would not let him out of the lake, he would have to attend to that matter himself.
But before he made another bold stroke against the enemy his stingy and niggardly spirit urged him to defend himself against his friends, and before endeavoring to leave he ordered a division of the spoils. Many of the goods taken from the two towns were on board the different vessels of the fleet, and he was very much afraid that if his comrades, who commanded the other ships, should be so fortunate as to get out to sea, they would sail away with the booty they carried, and he would not see any of it. Therefore, the booty from every ship was brought on board his own fine vessel, and every man was put through an examination as rigid as if he had been passing a custom house, and was obliged to prove that he had not concealed or kept back any money or jewels. The value of the plunder was very great, and when it had been divided, according to the scale which Morgan had adopted, the pirate leader felt safe. He now had his share of the prizes in his own possession, and [Pg 163] that to him was more important than anything else in the world.
The question of getting away was a very serious one; the greater part of his fleet consisted of small vessels which could not defy the guns of the fort, and as the stout hearts and brawny arms of his followers could be of no use to him in this dilemma, Morgan was obliged to fall back upon his own brains; therefore, he planned a trick.
When everything had been prepared for departure, Morgan anchored his fleet at a distance from the castle, but not so far away that the Spaniards could not observe his movements. Then he loaded some boats with armed men and had them rowed ashore on the side of the channel on which the castle stood. The boats landed behind a little wood, and there the men, instead of getting out, crouched themselves down in the bottom of the boats so that they should not be seen. Then the boats, apparently empty, were rowed back to the pirate ships, and in a short time, again full of men sitting, upright, with their muskets and cutlasses, they went to the shore, and soon afterwards returned apparently empty as before.
This performance was repeated over and over again, until the people in the castle were convinced that Morgan was putting his men on shore in order to make a land attack upon the rear of the castle [Pg 164] during the night. But the Spanish admiral was not to be caught by any such clumsy stratagem as that, and, therefore, in great haste he had his big cannon moved to the land side of the fort, and posted there the greater part of his garrison in order that when the pirates made their assault in the dead of the night they would meet with a reception for which they had not bargained.
When it was dark, and the tide began to run out, the pirate vessels weighed anchor, and they all drifted down toward the castle. Morgan's spies had perceived some of the extraordinary movements in the Spanish fortifications, and he therefore drifted down with a good deal of confidence, although, had his trick been discovered in time it would have gone very hard with his fleet. It is probable that he had taken all these chances into consideration and had felt pretty sure that if the cannon of the fort had been opened upon them it would not have been the big ship which carried him and his precious load which would have been sunk by the great guns, and that no matter what happened to the smaller vessels and the men on board them, he and his own ship would be able to sail away.
But the Spaniards did not perceive the approach of the drifting fleet, for they were intrepidly waiting at the back of the castle to make it very hot for the pirates when they should arrive. Slowly past the [Pg 165] great walls of the fort drifted the fleet of buccaneers, and then, at a signal, every v............