There was a sudden discharge of musketry from the surrounding thickets within half gun-shot. The Spaniards had armed the Indians and taught them to take unerring aim. Both Spaniards and savages united in the most hideous yells to appal the pirates with an idea of their superior numbers. Rapidly the unseen foe continued the discharge of the murderous bullets. Scarcely a minute elapsed ere many were dead, weltering in their blood. Others were severely wounded. And still the pitiless storm of leaden hail swept through the group, crashing bones and tearing nerves, and still the yells of the invisible assailants resounded through the forest. There was not a breath of air. The sulphurous smoke settled down, half concealing the awful spectacle of blood and death. Even the demoniac pirates were so panic-stricken that they dared not by a charge rush into the very jaws of destruction. Every instant their comrades were dropping. There was no time for thought. Those not yet struck leaped into the boats and pushed from the shore, leaving the dying and the dead in the water and upon the sand. Still the pelting storm pursued them till they were beyond gun-shot reach. Lolonois, the greatest villain of them all, escaped unharmed. Did God preserve him that he might drain to the dregs the cup of mental and bodily misery which he had so often presented to the lips of others? In view of what he had yet to endure, he might indeed have deemed it one of the richest of mercies had a bullet pierced heart or brain, and laid him instantly with the dead. The wretch had sufficient intelligence to perceive that he was ruined. There was no longer any hope of ravaging Nicaragua. His provisions were exhausted. He had no doubt that the whole coast was armed against them. As by lightning-bolts he had lost nearly one-half of his crews. Desponding, starving, he divided his company into two bands, to sail where they could, to save themselves from perishing by hunger. Lolonois, with thirty or forty men ran along the coast toward South America, till they reached the region of Carthagena. They were few and feeble, and feared to land. The atrocities committed by the pirates were everywhere known. Upon every league of the coast either the Spaniards or the Indians were watching for their approach, ready to give the general alarm, and to summon all who could be rallied to repel them.