the town there was a tall tower, on the top of which a sentinel was posted night and day to give notice of any approaching enemy.  Between these two islands was the only channel by which the town could be approached from the sea.  But in preparing these defences the authorities had thought only of defending themselves against ordinary naval forces and had not anticipated the extraordinary naval methods of the buccaneers who used to be merely sea-robbers, who fell upon ships after they had left their ports, but who now set out to capture not only ships at sea but towns on land.

L’Olonnois had too much sense to run his ships close under the guns of the fortress, against which he could expect to do nothing, for the buccaneers relied but little upon their cannon, and so they paid no more attention to the ordinary harbor than if it had not been there, but sailed into a fresh-water lake at some distance from the town, and out of sight of the tower.  There L’Olonnois landed his men, and, advancing upon the fort from the rear, easily crossed over to the little island and marched upon the fort.  It was very early in the morning.  The garrison was utterly amazed by this attack from land, and although they fought bravely for three hours, they were obliged to give up the defence of the walls, and as many of them as could do so got out of the fort and escaped to the mainland and the town.

L’Olonnois now took possession of the fort, and then, with the greater part of his men, he returned to his ships, brought them around to the entrance of the bay, and then boldly sailed with his whole fleet under the very noses of the cannon and anchored in the harbor in front of the town.

When the citizens of Maracaibo heard from the escaping garrison that the fort had been taken, they were filled with horror and dismay, for they had no further means of defence.  They knew that the pirates had come there for no other object than to rob, pillage, and cruelly treat them, and consequently as many as possible hurried away into the woods and the surrounding country with as many of their valuables as they could carry.  They resembled the citizens of a town attacked by the cholera or the plague, and in fact, they would have preferred a most terrible pestilence to this terrible scourge of piracy from which they were about to suffer.

As soon as L’Olonnois and his wild pirates had landed in the city they devoted themselves entirely to eating and drinking and making themselves merry.  They had been on short commons during the latter part of their voyage, and they had a royal time with the abundance of food and wine which they found in the houses of the town.  The next day, however, they set about attending to the business which had brought them there, and parties of pirates were sent out into the surrounding country to find the people who had run away and to take from them the treasures they had carried off.  But although a great many of the