Maria. They set out early the next morning, in sixty-eight canoas, being
in all "327 of us Englishmen, and 50 Indians." Until that day the canoas
had been "poled" as a punt is poled, but now they cut oars and paddles
"to make what speed we could." All that day they rowed, and late into
the night, rowing "with all haste imaginable," and snapping up one or
two passing Indian boats which were laden with plantains. It was after
midnight, and about "Two Hours before Day Light," when they ran into a
mud bank, about a mile from the town, and stepped ashore, upon a
causeway of oars and paddles. They had to cut themselves a path through
jungle, as soon as they had crossed the mud, for the town was walled
about with tropical forest. They "lay still in the Woods, till the Light
appeared," when they "heard the Spaniard discharge his Watch at his Fort
by Beat of Drum, and a Volley of Shot." It was the Spanish way of
changing guard, at daybreak. It was also the signal for the "Forlorn" of
the buccaneers to march to the battle, under Sawkins. This company
consisted of seventy buccaneers. As they debouched from the forest, upon
open ground, the Spaniards caught sight of them and beat to arms. The
men in the fort at once opened fire "very briskly," but the
advance-guard ran in upon them, tore down some of the stockade, and
"entered the fort incontinently." A moment or two of wild firing passed
inside the palisades, and then the Spanish colours were dowsed. The
buccaneers in this storm lost two men wounded, of the fifty who
attacked. The Spanish loss was twenty-six killed, and sixteen wounded,
out of 300 under arms. About fifty more, of the Spanish prisoners, were
promptly killed by the Indians, who took them into the woods and stabbed
them "to death" with their lances. It seems that one of that garrison, a
man named Josef Gabriele, had raped King Golden Cap's daughter who was
then with child by him. (Gabriele, as it chanced, was not speared, but
saved to pilot the pirates to Panama.) This was the sole action of the
Indians in that engagement. During the battle they lay "in a small
hollow," "in great consternation" at "the noise of the guns."

Though the buccaneers had taken the place easily, they had little cause
for rejoicing. The town was "a little pitiful Place," with a few
thatched huts, or "wild houses made of Cane," and "but one Church in
it." The fort "was only Stockadoes," designed merely as a frontier post
"to keep in subjectio