Book of Pirates | Page 9

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 it, and he found it where it lay riding at anchor in the mouth of the river Estra. At
the dawn of the morning he made his attack sharp, unexpected, decisive. In a little while
the Spaniards were forced below the hatches, and the vessel was taken. Then came the

end. One by one the poor shrieking wretches were dragged up from below, and one by
one they were butchered in cold blood, while l'Olonoise stood upon the poop deck and
looked coldly down upon what was being done. Among the rest the negro was dragged
upon the deck. He begged and implored that his life might be spared, promising to tell all
that might be asked of him. L'Olonoise questioned him, and when he had squeezed him
dry, waved his hand coldly, and the poor black went with the rest. Only one man was
spared; him he sent to the governor of Havana with a message that henceforth he would
give no quarter to any Spaniard whom he might meet in arms--a message which was not
an empty threat.
The rise of l'Olonoise was by no means rapid. He worked his way up by dint of hard
labor and through much ill fortune. But by and by, after many reverses, the tide turned,
and carried him with it from one success to another, without let or stay, to the bitter end.
Cruising off Maracaibo, he captured a rich prize laden with a vast amount of plate and
ready money, and there conceived the design of descending upon the powerful town of
Maracaibo itself. Without loss of time he gathered together five hundred picked
scoundrels from Tortuga, and taking with him one Michael de Basco as land captain, and
two hundred more buccaneers whom he commanded, down he came into the Gulf of
Venezuela and upon the doomed city like a blast of the plague. Leaving their vessels, the
buccaneers made a land attack upon the fort that stood at the mouth of the inlet that led
into Lake Maracaibo and guarded the city.
The Spaniards held out well, and fought with all the might that Spaniards possess; but
after a fight of three hours all was given up and the garrison fled, spreading terror and
confusion before them. As many of the inhabitants of the city as could do so escaped in
boats to Gibraltar, which lies to the southward, on the shores of Lake Maracaibo, at the
distance of some forty leagues or more.
Then the pirates marched into the town, and what followed may be conceived. It was a
holocaust of lust, of passion, and of blood such as even the Spanish West Indies had
never seen before. Houses and churches were sacked until nothing was left but the bare
walls; men and women were tortured to compel them to disclose where more treasure lay
hidden.
Then, having wrenched all that they could from Maracaibo, they entered the lake and
descended upon Gibraltar, where the rest of the panic- stricken inhabitants were huddled
together in a blind terror.
The governor of Merida, a brave soldier who had served his king in Flanders, had
gathered