buccaneering his occupation. This veteran would
not be dissuaded from going on the enterprise against Leon; but his
strength failed in the march, and after being left on the road he was
found by the Spaniards, who endeavored to make him their prisoner; but
he refused to surrender, and fired his musket amongst them, having in
reserve a pistol still charged; on which he was shot dead."[6]

After this, the force scattered in small bands to plunder on their own
account, Davis keeping together the best of the men whom he took to
Cocos Island where a considerable stay was made. Thence he ravaged the
coast of Peru, capturing many vessels and taking many towns. With
booty amounting to five thousand pieces of eight for every man, Davis
sailed to Juan Fernandez to refit, intending to proceed from there to
the West Indies, but before the ships and men were ready for the long
voyage around Cape Horn, many of the buccaneers had lost all their gold
at dice, and they could not endure to quit the South Sea empty handed.
Their luckier comrades sailed for the West Indies with Captain Knight,
while they chose to remain and try their fortune afresh with Captain
Davis, in the _Batchelor's Delight_. They soon fell in with a large
party of French and English buccaneers who had formerly cruised with
them, and were now engaged in trying to take the rich city of
Guayaquil. They were making sorry business of it, however, and in sore
need of such a capable leader as Davis. He finished the task with
neatness and dispatch and shared in the gorgeous plunder of gold and
silver and jewels, reckoned by one of the Frenchmen in his account of
the episode at fifteen hundred thousand livres.

Davis was now satisfied to leave the Pacific, but whether he went first
to Cocos Island to bury any treasure, history saith not, although
tradition roundly affirms that he did. That he and many of his fellow
buccaneers frequently resorted to the Galapagos group, as well as
tarrying at Cocos, is a matter of record. Of the former islands,
Captain Colnet who touched there in 1793, wrote:[7]

"This isle appears to have been a favorite resort of the buccaneers as
we found seats made by them of stone and earth, and a considerable
number of broken jars scattered about, and some whole, in which the
Peruvian wine and liquors of the country are preserved. We also found
daggers, nails and other implements. The watering-place of the
buccaneers was at this time entirel