Thereupon the disappointed fiends
cruelly killed him.
For five weeks the country surrounding Gibraltar was the scene of a
series of diabolical horrors. The pirates undertook the most hazardous
and difficult expeditions in order to find the people who had hidden
themselves on islands and in the mountains, and although they obtained a
great deal of booty, they met with a good many misfortunes. Some of them
were drowned in swollen streams, and others lost much of their pillage
by rains and storms.
At last, after having closed his vile proceedings in the ordinary pirate
fashion, by threatening to burn the town if he were not paid a ransom,
Morgan thought it time for him to depart, for if the Spaniards should
collect a sufficient force at Maracaibo to keep him from getting out of
the lake, he would indeed be caught in a trap. The ransom was partly
paid and partly promised, and Morgan and his men departed, carrying with
them some hostages for the rest of the ransom due.
When Morgan and his fleet arrived at Maracaibo, they found the town
still deserted, but they also discovered that they were caught in the
trap which they had feared, out of which they saw no way of escaping.
News had been sent the Spanish forces; of the capture and sacking of
Maracaibo, and three large men-of-war now lay in the channel below the
town which led from the lake into the sea.
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