Oexmelin merely says that Lolonnois set fire to the four corners of the town, and in six hours reduced the whole to ashes. Palm-thatch and cedar walls burn quick, and the sea-breeze was there to fan the flames, while the Buccaneers were learned in the art of destruction. Lolonnois then collected his men by beat of drum, and embarked his booty. Before he sailed, he sent two of his prisoners again into the woods, to tell the inhabitants that all the prisoners in his hands would be at once put to death if the ransom were not paid. All prisoners who had not paid their ransom he took with him, even the slaves being valued at so much, and having put on board all riches that were movable, and a large sum of money as a ransom for what was immovable, the Buccaneer fleet returned to Maracaibo. The city, now partly repeopled, was thrown again into disorder, nor much lessened when three or four prisoners came to the governor, bearing a demand from Lolonnois to pay at once 30,000 pieces of eight down upon his deck, or to expect a second sack, and the fate of Gibraltar. While these terms were under concession, and the Spanish merchants were chaffering with the sailors, as a lowland farmer might have done with a highland _cateran_, a party of well-inclined Flibustiers, unwilling to waste their time, rowed on shore, and stripped the great church of its pictures, images, carvings, clocks, and bells, even to the very cross on its steeple, piously desiring to erect a chapel at Tortuga, where there was much need of spiritual instruction. The Spaniards at last agreed to pay for their ransom and liberty 20,000 piastres, 10,000 pieces of eight, and 500 cows, provided the fleet would do no further injury, and depart at once, and the blessing of Maracaibo with them. We can imagine the trembling and suppressed joy with which the people of Maracaibo must have beheld the fleet sail slowly out of their harbour, all eyes on board bent onward to the horizon and the golden future--none looking back with a moment's regret upon the misery and the black ruin left behind. How many orphans must have cursed them as they sailed, and how many widows! Three days after the embarkation, to the horror of the city, a vessel with a red flag at its masthead was seen re-entering the harbour, but only, as it soon appeared, to demand a pilot to take the fleet over the bar. On their way to Hispaniola, Lolonnois touched at the Isle de la Vacca, intending to stay there and divide the spoil. This island was inhabited by French Buccaneers, who sold the flesh of the animals they killed to vessels in want of victual. But a dispute arising here, the fleet again set out to disband the crew at Gouaves in Hispaniola.