The governor was on the alert. His scouts watched all the approaches to his retreat. It required a very painful and laborious march of two days for the pirates to reach the spot where the fugitives were intrenched. The governor, with much sagacity, had selected a large island in a river. The region was difficult of approach, leading through the roughest paths of tangled thickets and bogs. God seemed to frown upon the pirates. The rain fell in floods upon them. They were drenched to the skin. Many mountain torrents they were compelled to ford, wading up to the waist through the foaming water. They sank to the hips in the softened marshes. Their shoes were torn from their feet. Their clothes were rent and their skin pierced by the thorns. When they reached the river they found the current rapid and the channel deep. There were no boats with which to cross. These desperate men were provided for every emergence. They soon constructed canoes and crossed the stream. But in the hurried passage many of the canoes were swamped and the men lost. Upon reaching the island they found that the governor had taken refuge on a densely wooded and craggy mountain. The path which led to the summit, winding through the thickets and the immense rocks, was so narrow that it could only be mounted in single file. In fording the rivers and wading through the bogs, and breasting the rain and the gale, all of the ammunition of the pirates had been injured, and much of it utterly spoiled. The whole party was in such a condition, that Esquemeling writes: “If the Spaniards, in that juncture of time, had had but a troop of fifty men, well armed with pikes or spears, they might have entirely destroyed the pirates, without any possible resistance on their side.” The governor was not aware of this. Prudently he remained upon the defensive. He had several of the soldiers of the garrison with him, and an ample supply of ammunition. His men were admirably posted behind rocks and trees, so that had the pirates persisted in their endeavor to ascend the mountain, every man must have perished. And it is doubtful whether they could have inflicted even a wound upon their unseen assailants. Morgan perceived that the case was hopeless. Discouraged and maddened he commenced a retreat. Twelve days passed from the time they commenced their enterprise before Morgan, with his diminished and shattered party, returned to Gibraltar. They had, however, captured on the way quite a number of fugitives whom they had found scattered through the woods, and also a considerable amount of money. They took a sort of fiendish pleasure, on their return, in seeing the aged women and the children swept away by the foaming mountain torrents, which they forded. They returned to Gibraltar exasperated, and prepared to inflict severer torture upon all their captives.