the guns had been loaded. The sea
lashings had been cast off, although the gun-tackles were carefully
secured, for the wind was blowing fresher and the sea running heavier
every hour.

The men were armed to the teeth. There happened to be a goodly supply
of arms on the Spanish ship in addition to those the buccaneers had
brought with them, which were all distributed. Many a steel cap destined
for some proud Spanish hidalgo's head now covered the cranium of some
rude ruffian whom the former would have despised as beneath his feet.

Everything was propitious for their enterprise but the weather. The
veterans who were familiar with local conditions in the Caribbean
studied the northeastern skies with gloomy dissatisfaction. The wind was
blowing dead inshore, and as the struck bells denoted the passing hours,
with each half-hourly period it grew appreciably stronger. If it
continued to blow, or if, as it was almost certain, the strength of the
wind increased, it would be impossible without jeopardizing the ship to
come to anchor in the exposed roadstead. They would have to run for it.
Nay, more, they would have to beat out to sea against it, for the
coast-line beyond La Guayra turned rapidly to the northward.

Morgan was a bold and skilful mariner, and he held his course parallel
to the land much longer than was prudent. He was loath, indeed, to
abandon even temporarily a design upon which he had determined, and as
he had rapidly run down his southing in this brief cruise his
determination had been quickened by the thought of his growing nearness
to the Pearl of Caracas, until for the moment love--or what he called
love--had almost made him forget the treasure in the ship beneath his
feet. For the Pearl of Caracas was a woman.

Mercedes de Lara, daughter of the Viceroy of Venezuela, on her way home
from Spain where she had been at school, to join her father, the Count
Alvaro de Lara in the Vice-regal Palace at St. Jago de Leon, sometimes
called the City of Caracas, in the fair valley on the farther side of
those towering tree-clad mountains--the Cordilleras of the shore--had
touched at Jamaica. There she had been received with due honor, as
became the daughter of so prominent a personage, by the Vice-Governor
and his wretched wife. Morgan's heart had been inflamed by the dark,
passionate beauty of the Spanish maiden. It was only by a severe
restraint enjoined upon himself by his position that he had refrained
from abus