Men who had been revelling in the plenty of two captured cities, could not return without impatience to the restraints of a time of scarcity. Gibraltar always depending upon Maracaibo for its meat, and not well supplied with flour, was, in fact, like a miser dying for want of a loaf, while his storehouses were brimmed over with gold. The little meat and flour were quickly consumed by the Buccaneers, who left their prisoners to shift for themselves. The cattle they soon appropriated, giving the mules' and asses' flesh to those Spaniards whose hunger was strong enough to conquer their disgust. A few of the women were allowed better fare, and many who had become the mistresses of their captors were well treated by their lovers. Some of these were mere slaves, others were voluntary concubines, but the greater part had been compelled, by poverty and fear, to abandon their fathers and husbands. Lolonnois, sending four of his prisoners into the woods, demanded a ransom of 80,000 pieces of eight within two days, threatening the fugitives to burn the town to ashes if his desire was not acceded to. The Spaniards, already half-beggared, disagreed about the ransom; the bolder and the more avaricious refused to pay a piastre, the old, the timid, and the more generous preferred poverty to such a loss. Some said it would serve as a mere bribe to allure a third adventurer, and others declared it was the only means of saving Merida. While they were thus disputing the two days passed, and the debate was put an end to by the sight of flame ascending above the roofs. The city was already fired in two or three places, when the inhabitants, promising to bring the ransom, persuaded the Buccaneers to assist in quenching the flames, not, however, till the chief houses were burned, and the chief monastery was ruined.