“As he was doing so a messenger arrived from the Governor General bearing a letter requesting Morgan to send him ‘some small pattern of the arms wherewith he had, by such violence, taken a great city.’ Evidently the Governor imagined that the buccaneers possessed some novel or marvelous arms, for he could not believe that the place had fallen to the English through ordinary means. Morgan received the messenger courteously and with a flash of grim humor handed him a pistol and a few bullets, telling him to carry them to the Governor and to inform him that ‘he desired him to accept that slender pattern of arms wherewith he had taken Porto Bello and to keep them for a twelvemonth, after which time he would come in person to Panama and fetch them away.’ “Evidently, too, the haughty old Governor had a sense of humor, for ere Morgan sailed away the messenger returned, bearing a message of thanks from the Governor, a gold ring which he was requested to accept with His Excellency’s compliments and a letter stating that Morgan ‘need not give himself the trouble of visiting Panama, for he could promise that he should not speed as well there as he had at Porto Bello.’ “With the vast loot he had won, a treasure amounting to a quarter of a million pieces of eight, thousands of bales of silks, vast stores of merchandise and fabulous sums in bullion, plate and jewels, Morgan left the harried shores of Panama and set sail for Port Royal, where he arrived in safety and was welcomed and lauded as the greatest buccaneer of them all.” CHAPTER IV THE SACKING OF MARACAIBO “But I thought Morgan was Governor of Jamaica and a ‘Sir,’” said Jack.