Lolonois’s success had given him high reputation as a pirate. There were many on the island ready to furnish him with the means for another adventure. There were hundreds of penniless, starving wretches staggering through the streets, eager to enlist under his banner for any service whatever. Inscrutable is the mystery of God’s government. He has allowed miniature hells to exist on earth, and to be crowded with demons in human form. No philosophy, no theology can explain this. The heart, in its anguish, often cries out, “O Lord, how long! how long!” Faith tremblingly and sadly exclaims, “What we know not now we shall know hereafter.” This demoniac man had sense enough to abandon his cups, until his brain was sufficiently clear to organize, even to its details, the plan for a new expedition. The enterprise was communicated to a few men of capital and unscrupulous shrewdness. Money was promptly raised. Six vessels were purchased. There were generally vessels enough in the harbor, from the prizes that were brought in, and from the large number of piratic ships. Lolonois placarded a proclamation upon the walls, calling for volunteers. More than seven hundred eager applicants thronged his doors. Three hundred of these he took, with himself, on board his largest ship. The rest were placed in five other ships. None but the leading officers were informed of the destination of the fleet. They first sailed to a port called Bayaha, on the Island of San Domingo, then, as we have mentioned, called Hispaniola; or Little Spain. Here they filled their water-casks and supplied themselves with provisions. Thence they sailed to Matamana, a solitary but commodious harbor on the south side of Cuba. This region was famous for its rich turtles. Native Cuban fishermen, in large boats, pursued these animals, alike valuable for their flesh and their shells. The pirates were fond of turtle soup. Lolonois needed a large number of boats, that he might simultaneously land the crews, from his ships, upon any doomed city. These poor men were mercilessly robbed of their boats, into many of which forty sailors could be crowded. The poor fishermen, having no other means of subsistence, were overwhelmed with grief and dismay. Lolonois was as heedless of their sorrows as he was of the manifest trouble of the tortoise when deprived of its young. Again they spread their sails, and had advanced about three hundred miles along the southern coast of Cuba, when they were overtaken by what the Spaniards call a “furious calm.”