tool and weapon, and with this they undertook their herculean job. They were thus busily at work when, to their delight, they saw a canoe approaching and, hiding in the bushes, they watched it as it drew towards the beach and discovered that it contained two men,—poor fishermen,—a Spaniard and a mulatto. Picking up several calabashes, the mulatto stepped from the little craft and started up the beach, evidently intent on securing water. Stealing stealthily after him the buccaneers, to quote Esquemeling’s words, ‘assaulted him and, discharging a great blow on his head with the hatchet, they soon deprived him of life.’ Hearing his cries, the Spaniard started to escape, but was quickly overtaken and butchered. Then, securing a plentiful supply of water in the dead man’s calabashes, they set sail and a few days later arrived safely at a buccaneers’ lair in Samaná Bay, Santo Domingo. “Here Ogeron told his story, gathered together all the buccaneers he could find and with a number of ships and several hundred men started on his voyage of rescue and vengeance. The Dons, however, saw his fleet approaching and prepared to give the buccaneers a warm welcome. Unsuspecting, the buccaneers fell into an ambuscade, great numbers were killed and the survivors who did not manage to escape to their ships, were made prisoners. Ogeron himself escaped and shamed and beaten returned to Tortuga, abandoning all hopes of rescuing his unfortunate comrades. In the meantime, the Dons slaughtered the wounded Frenchmen, cut off a few heads and limbs of the corpses to prove to their first prisoners the fate of their friends who had attempted their rescue, and drove the poor fellows on towards the capital. Here in San Juan they were put to work at building the massive fortress of San Cristóbal while a few were transported to Havana as laborers on the fortifications there. But the Dons took no chances with them. Although but a handful of half-starved, shackled slaves yet the buccaneers’ reputation was such that the Spaniards kept them constantly under guard, confining them in separate cells at night, for, to once more quote Esquemeling’s quaint phraseology, ‘the Spaniards had had divers proofs of their enterprises on other occasions which afforded them sufficient cause to use them after this manner.’