nothing of this. Having the 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.

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