The cows were driven in. The money was paid. The people, still trembling, and not daring to manifest their joy, saw these Goths and Vandals of modern times, spread their sails, and slowly disappear in the distant horizon. But who can imagine the condition in which the town was left? The people were utterly despoiled. The homes were desolated. Widows and orphans wept and wailed, with life-long penury before them. Not a few of the people with ruined constitutions, tottered through the streets, slowly recovering from the crushings and the lacerations of the rack. When we read of such crimes perpetrated by man upon his brother, one almost shrinks from owning himself a man. And the weary heart finds little comfort in the thought that the Spaniards deserved it all. These woes came upon them as a righteous retribution. With equal cruelty they had treated the native Cubans, the Mexicans, and the Peruvians. The fleet sailed for Gonaves on the Island of Hispaniola. There the spoil was to be divided. Each one took a solemn oath, on the Bible, that he had concealed nothing, but that he had thrown everything into the public stock. The gathering of the pirates for this distribution on the shores of a lovely bay of the Island of St. Domingo, must have presented a very singular spectacle. In the centre of a small verdant lawn, spread upon the grass, were bales of richest silk; cloths of great variety of texture; baskets of gold and silver coin, pistols, sabres, and muskets of the best construction, and costly jewels, and golden cups, vases, and ornaments, of which the churches had been despoiled. Around stood wild groups of heavily armed, half-naked pirates, in ferocity of aspect resembling fiends rather than men. Some countenances were disfigured with sabre gashes; while some hobbled upon crutches. Native Indians had gathered around, their long, black hair streaming in the wind, and their almost naked bodies shining like coin fresh from the mint. Several Spanish captives were there, men and women, looking sadly on at the distribution of the wealth of which their own homes had been plundered. There were also a large number of negro slaves present, with their black limbs and woolly, hatless heads, whom the pirates had brought with them to perform their heavy or menial tasks. After an exact calculation of the whole spoil in coin, jewels, and goods, the sum total was estimated at only about five hundred thousand dollars. The property was really worth much more. But a very low estimate was placed upon most of the goods. Silver in bullion was valued at eight dollars a pound. The pirates were so ignorant of the real value of jewels, that they were prized at nothing like their real worth. Many of the stores and fabrics were also greatly undervalued.