The defenders of the works numbered probably not more than thirty or forty men. Nearly five hundred reckless desperadoes emerged from the woods for the assault. They were all veterans, and all sharpshooters. Not a hand could be exposed but a bullet would strike it. Such a storm of balls were thrown with unerring aim in at every embrasure, that the guns could not be worked. When the pirates, in their large numbers, first appeared emerging from the forest, the fort opened a fire so intense and continuous that it resembled the crater of a small volcano in most rapid eruption. But the pirates, who could return ten bullets for every one received, and who were careful that every bullet should accomplish its mission, soon caused the fire to slacken. Still the fight continued for many hours, till night came, with no apparent advantage on either side. With the darkness the conflict ceased. Morgan sent a party cautiously forward to reconnoitre. No light was to be seen. No sound was to be heard. Solitude and silence reigned. The fort was deserted. With shouts the pirates rushed forward to take possession of the works. The loud voice of Morgan arrested them. He was as cautious as he was brave. A party of engineers was dispatched, led by Morgan himself, to search lest there might be lighted fuses leading to the magazine. Morgan was the first to enter. His quick eye discerned the gleam of a fuse slowly creeping toward the magazine, where three thousand pounds of gunpowder were stored. It was instantly trampled out. But for this caution, five hundred pirates would have swarmed all over the fort. There would have been an earthquake roar, a volcanic upheaval, and not one of those five hundred desperadoes would have survived to tell the story of the retribution which had so suddenly befallen them. The fort was a small but strong redoubt, or outwork, built of stone, circular in form, with a massive wall thirty feet high. It was only accessible by an iron ladder which could be let down from a guard-room. It mounted fourteen cannons, of eight, twelve, and fourteen pound calibre. There was also found a quantity of fire-pots, hand-grenades, pikes, and muskets. The pirates had no time to lose. It was needful to press forward as rapidly as possible, for every hour the inhabitants of the city might be adding to their defences. They blew up a portion of the wall; spiked the cannon, and threw them over the ramparts; burned the gun-carriages, and destroyed all the material of war which they could not carry away with them.