hundred thousand pieces of eight had been taken in addition to immense stores of silks, gold and silver plate and jewels. “Hardly had he landed when L’Ollonois prepared for another raid and with seven hundred men set sail with six ships for Honduras. Here the beastly buccaneer chief tortured and killed and robbed to his heart’s content, but finding comparatively little loot and thinking the inhabitants had secreted their wealth, he became mad with fury and outdid all his former inhuman acts. On one occasion, when a prisoner insisted that he did not know the route to a certain town, L’Ollonois slashed open the fellow’s breast with his sword, tore out his still throbbing heart and bit and gnawed at it with his teeth, as Esquemeling says, ‘like a ravenous wolf,’ and threatened to serve the other prisoners in the same manner unless they showed him the way to San Pedro. This they did, but the Spaniards had placed ambuscades and the buccaneers were compelled to fight savagely every inch of the way. Finally the Dons agreed to deliver the town if the buccaneers would grant quarter for two hours, but no sooner was the time up than L’Ollonois hurried his men after the people, robbed them of what they had and slaughtered them without mercy. But L’Ollonois was too bestial and cruel even for his own men. A short time after the sack of San Pedro, dissensions arose and the party divided, the majority of the buccaneers leaving with Moses Vanclein to raid the coast towns of Costa Rica and Panama. From that time on L’Ollonois had nothing but ill luck and soon afterwards his ship was wrecked off Cape Gracias à Dios. With the remains of the wreck, the buccaneers set to work to construct a small boat, and to sustain themselves, planted gardens. For six months they were marooned until the boat was completed, and L’Ollonois, with part of his crew, set out for the San Juan River in Nicaragua. But fate had turned against him which as Esquemeling naïvely remarks, ‘had long time been reserved for him as a punishment due to the multitude of horrible crimes which in his wicked life he had committed.’ Attacked by the Spaniards and their Indian allies, he was forced to retreat with heavy loss and, still hoping to retrieve his fortunes, headed southward for the coasts of Darien. And here the villain met with the end he so richly deserved. He was taken by the savage Indians of the district, was torn to pieces while alive and his limbs cast into a fire. Finally, that no trace or memory of him might remain, the savages scattered his ashes in the air.” CHAPTER III MORGAN AND HIS ROAD TO FAME “Ugh!” exclaimed Jack, as his father ceased speaking. “Wasn’t he the most awful creature! Gosh, I always thought the buccaneers were brave men and heroes.”