This they truly did, and L’Olonnois, having a very imperfect knowledge of the proper way to the town, led them into a wild bog, where this precious pack of rascals soon found themselves up to their knees in mud and water, and in spite of all the cursing and swearing which they did, they were not able to press through the bog or get out of it.  In this plight they were discovered by a body of horsemen from the town, who began firing upon them.  The Spaniards must now have thought that their game was almost bagged and that all they had to do was to stand on the edge of the bog and shoot down the floundering fellows who could not get away from them.  But these fellows were bloody buccaneers, each one of them a great deal harder to kill than a cat, and they did not propose to stay in the bog to be shot down.  With their cutlasses they hewed off branches of trees and threw these down in the bog, making a sort of rude roadway by means of which they were able to get out on solid ground.  But here they found themselves confronted by a large body of Spaniards, entrenched behind earthworks.  Cannon and musket were opened upon the buccaneers, and the noise and smoke were so terrible they could scarcely hear the commands of their leaders.

Never before, perhaps, had pirates been engaged in such a land battle as this.  Very soon the Spaniards charged from behind their earthworks, and then L’Olonnois and his men were actually obliged to fly back.  If he could have found any way of retreating to his ships, L’Olonnois would doubtless have done so, in spite of his doughty words, when he addressed his men, but this was now impossible, for the Spaniards had felled trees and had made a barricade between the pirates and their ships.  The buccaneers were now in a very tight place; their enemy was behind defences and firing at them steadily, without showing any intention of coming out to give the pirates a chance for what they considered a fair fight.  Every now and then a buccaneer would fall, and L’Olonnois saw that as it would be utterly useless to endeavor to charge the barricade he must resort to some sort of trickery or else give up the battle.

Suddenly he passed the word for every man to turn his back and run away as fast as he could from the earthworks.  Away scampered the pirates, and from the valiant Spaniards there came a shout of victory.  The soldiers could not be restrained from following the fugitives and putting to death every one of the cowardly rascals.  Away went the buccaneers, and after them, hot and furious, came the soldiers.  But as soon as the Spaniards were so far away from their entrenchments that they could not get back to them, the crafty L’Olonnois, who ran with one eye turned behind him, called a halt, his men turned, formed into battle array, and began an onslaught upon their pursuing enemy, such as these military persons had never dreamed of in their wildest imagination.  We are told that over two hundred Spaniards perished in a very short time.  Before a furious pirate with a cutlass a soldier with his musket seemed to have no chance at all, and very soon the Spaniards who were left alive broke and ran into the woods.