. There was no time for another
discharge. The ladders were placed against the walls, and priests and
nuns were ruthlessly cast aside and trampled down. In a little space the
marauders were upon the ramparts fighting like demons. Morgan, covered
by Black Dog, with Teach, de Lussan, and L'Ollonois, was in the lead.
Truth to tell, the captain was never backward when fighting was going
on. The desperate onslaught of their overwhelming numbers, once they had
gained a foothold, swept the defenders before them like chaff. Waiting
for nothing, they sprang down from the fort and raced madly through the
narrow streets of the town. They brushed opposition away as leaves are
driven aside by a winter storm. Ere the defenders on the east forts
could realize their presence, they were upon them, also.

In half an hour every man bearing a weapon had been cut down. The town
was at the mercy of this horde of human tigers. They broke open wine
cellars; they pillaged the provision shops; they tortured without mercy
the merchants and inhabitants to force them to discover their treasures,
and they insulted and outraged the helpless women. They were completely
beyond control now; drunk with slaughter, intoxicated with liquor, mad
with lust, they ravaged and plundered. To add to the confusion, fire
burst forth here and there, and before the morning dawned half of the
city was in ashes.

The pale moon looked down upon a scene of horror such as it had never
before shone upon, even in the palmiest days of the buccaneers.

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH BENJAMIN HORNIGOLD RECOGNIZES A CROSS, AND CAPTAIN ALVARADO
FINDS AND LOSES A MOTHER ON THE STRAND

The musketeers under Hornigold, chosen for their mastery with the
weapon, had played their parts with cunning skill.

[Illustration]

Concealed from observation by the deep shadow of the cliffs, and
therefore immune from the enemy's fire, they had made targets of the
Spaniards on the walls, and by a close, rapid, and well-directed
discharge, had kept down the return of the garrison until the very
moment of the assault. Hornigold was able to keep them in hand for a
little space after the capture of the town, but the thought of the
pleasure being enjoyed by their comrades was too much for them. Anxious
to take a hand in the hideous fray, they stole away one by one,
slinking under the cliff until they were beyond the reach of the
boatswain, then boldly rushing for the town in the open, until the