This shout alarmed them. It revealed the fact that, in some way, the Spaniards had been warned of the expected attack upon Panama, and would prepare for resistance. As a group of the pirates were conferring together, in the dusk, an arrow from the castle struck one of them in the shoulder. He coolly drew the point from the bleeding wound, and addressing his companions, said: “Look here, my comrades, I will make this accursed arrow the means of the destruction of all the Spaniards.” He then drew from his pocket a quantity of wild cotton, which the buccaneers carried with them as lint to staunch their wounds. This he wound around the head of the arrow. Charging his musket with powder only, he inserted the arrow and fired it back into the castle. It lighted upon a roof of thatch. The powder set fire to the cotton, and the cotton to the dry leaves. The roof was instantly in a flame. The Indians had aided the garrison, and their arrows lay thick around. Instantly the air was filled with a shower of these flaming meteors. They fell upon the thatched roofs, and tongues of fire flashed in all directions. One chanced to fall upon a large quantity of powder, and a fearful explosion followed. A terrible conflagration blazed forth. A scene of shrieks, confusion, and horror ensued which is indescribable. The inmates of the fort found themselves in the crater of a volcano in its most violent state of eruption. It was in vain to attempt to extinguish the flames. No one could live in such a furnace. The night was dark, moonless and starless. The bodies of the Spaniards were clearly defined against the glowing background of flame. The pirates, with unerring aim, shot them down. Every bullet struck its target. The Spaniards, in the horrible tumult, could make but little resistance. They still, however, taking refuge as they could in different parts of the fort, fought with impotent desperation. Oexemelin relates an incident illustrative of the indomitable fury of the assailants. One of the pirates was pierced in the eye by an Indian arrow. In terrible agony he came to Oexemelin to draw it out. Its barbed point had sunk deep in the socket of the eye, and could only be withdrawn by cruelly tearing it out. Oexemelin hesitated; he had not sufficient nerve to inflict such torture. The pirate seized it with both hands, tore it out with its mangled and bloody adhesions, bound a handkerchief over the wound, and with a curse rushed forward again to the assault. The fire raged through the whole night. All the wood-work was consumed. The walls of earth crumbled down. The pirates, mounting upon each other’s shoulders, climbed the ramparts and threw down hand-grenades and fire-balls, and pots of suffocating odors upon the helpless garrison. “The armor had fallen piecemeal from their giant adversary, and he now stood before them bare, wounded, and defenceless.”