Their gangs ranged the woods for great distances, bringing in plunder and prisoners. Many women were brought in. Every conceivable measure was resorted to, to get money. The whole region was wantonly turned into a blackened, smouldering desert. Lolonois wished to pursue his mad career over the mountains to Merida. But a pestilential and contagious disease sprang up among his men. God’s hand seemed to smite them. All were sick. Skeleton forms staggered through the streets. These men were not ignorant of the crimes they were committing. There were no loving hands to attend them in the languor of sickness, in the agonies of death. In misery, many of these wretches were burned with fever. Moaning and blaspheming they died, and their guilty souls passed to the tribunal of that God who cannot look upon sin but with abhorrence. They had seized their ill-gotten gold, and it had indeed turned to ashes in their grasp. CHAPTER X. _The Plunder; the Carousal; and the New Enterprise._ Gibraltar in Ashes.--The Return to Maracaibo.--Division of the Plunder.--Peculiar Scene.--Reception of the Pirates at Tortuga.--Fiend-like Carousal.--The Pirates Reduced to Beggary.--Lolonois’s New Enterprise.--The “Furious Calm.”--Days of Disaster.--Ravaging the Coast.--Capture of San Pedro. Disease was now cutting down the pirates faster than the bullets or sabres of the Spaniards had done. The victors, with an abundance of gold and booty, were starving. The provisions in the place were all consumed, and no fresh supplies had been brought in. The woe-stricken wretches were quarrelling among themselves about the division of the spoil. Lolonois sent several parties of men into the region around, to search out fugitives from Gibraltar, and say to them that if, within two days, they would send in to him fifty-eight thousand dollars, he would not burn the city; otherwise he would lay every building in ashes. He set at liberty several of his prisoners also, to convey to their friends the same information. Disappointed in the money he had found, he still believed that large sums had been secreted by the fugitives. The two days passed, and the money did not come. Lolonois set fire to the four corners of the town, and in six hours reduced it to ashes. By beat of drum he assembled his sick and starving men, and embarked, with all the riches which were movable. He took several captives with him, male and female. Sailing down the bay, they soon reached Maracaibo. Quite a number of the inhabitants, who had returned tremblingly to their desolated homes, he captured. Beggared as the poor creatures already were, the merciless pirate said to them: “If you will supply me with five hundred cows, and bring me thirty thousand dollars in coin, I will spare your city. If you do not yield to this demand, I will treat your city as I have served Gibraltar. Not one building shall be left standing.”