en ramparts, casting down "many flaming pots," and calling on the
English dogs to attack them. The pirates lay close in the shadows,
picking off the Spaniards as they moved in the red firelight, so that
many poor fellows came toppling into the gully from the mounds.

When day dawned, the castle lay open to the pirates. The walls were all
burnt, and fallen down, but in the breaches stood the Spanish soldiers,
manning their guns as though the walls still protected them. The fight
began as furiously as it had raged the day before. By noon most of the
Spanish gunners had been shot down by the picked musketeers; while a
storming party ran across the ditch, and rushed a breach. As the pirates
gained the inside of the fort, the Spanish Governor charged home upon
them with twenty-five soldiers armed with pikes, clubbed muskets,
swords, or stones from the ruin. For some minutes these men mixed in a
last desperate struggle; then the Spaniards were driven back by the
increasing numbers of the enemy. Fighting hard, they retreated to the
inner castle, cheered by their Governor, who still called on them to
keep their flag aloft. The inner castle was a ruin, but the yellow flag
still flew there, guarded by some sorely wounded soldiers and a couple
of guns. Here the last stand was made, and here the gallant captain was
hit by a bullet, "which pierced his skull into the brain." The little
band of brave men now went to pieces before the rush of pirates. Some of
them fell back, still fighting, to the wall, over which they flung
themselves "into the sea," dying thus honourably rather than surrender.
About thirty of them, "whereof scarce ten were not wounded," surrendered
in the ruins of the inner fortress. These thirty hurt and weary men
were the survivors of 314 who had stood to arms the day before. All the
rest were dead, save "eight or nine," who had crept away by boat up the
Chagres to take the news to Panama. No officer remained alive, nor was
any powder left; the Spaniards were true soldiers. The pirates lost
"above one hundred killed" and over seventy wounded, or rather more than
half of the men engaged. While the few remaining Spaniards dug trenches
in the sand for the burial of the many dead, the pirates questioned them
as to their knowledge of Morgan's enterprise. They knew all about it,
they said, for a deserter from the pirate ships which raided the Rio de
la Hacha (for grain) had spoken of the scheme to the Governor at
Cartagen