The pirates thought, or pretended to think, that he was some rich person assuming the disguise of poverty and semi-insanity. He led them to a miserable hovel containing only a few earthern pots. He dug up, from under the hearth, three dollars which he had buried there. Still they affirmed that he was a grandee in disguise, and commenced torturing him anew. In his agony he cried out: “In the name of Jesus; in the name of the Virgin Mary, what will you do with me, Englishmen? I am a poor man. I live on alms. I sleep in the hospital.” He died under their hands. They dragged him aside and covered him with a few shovelfuls of earth. Some of the slaves, who had been inhumanly treated by their masters, now took revenge, and revealed their hiding-places to the pirates. A poor lame peasant, with his two daughters, was brought in. Appalled by the terrors of the rack, he promised to lead them through the woods to a retreat where several of the Spaniards were concealed. But the Spaniards, vigilantly on the watch, fled. The pirates, in the rage of their disappointment, hung the poor peasant. What became of his daughters we are not informed. But I cannot torture my readers with a narrative of these horrors. They were dreadful beyond all powers of description. It seems inexplicable that God could have permitted such awful deeds. Parties, thoroughly armed, were sent out to explore the region for many miles around. One of the slaves promised to conduct Captain Morgan to a river flowing into the lake, where there was a ship and four large boats richly laden with merchandise, taken both from Gibraltar and from Maracaibo. He also promised to lead a party to the place where the governor of Gibraltar was concealed, with most of the females of the city. The capture of the governor, for whom a great ransom could be expected to save him from death by torture, and the capture of the females, were deemed matters of the greatest moment by these demoniac pirates. Morgan himself took a party of two hundred men, with the slave as a guide, and set out on an expedition to capture the governor and the women. At the same time he dispatched another party of one hundred men in two large boats, to seize the ships. They were to coast along the shores of the solitary lake until they reached the mouth of the river where the vessels of the refugees were concealed.