the two days passed without the payment of the ransom, and the relentless pirates promptly carried out their threat and set the town on fire in various places.  When the poor Spaniards saw this and perceived that they were about to lose even their homes, they sent to the town and promised that if the pirates would put out the fires they would pay the money.  In the hope of more money, and not in the least moved by any feeling of kindness, L’Olonnois ordered his men to help put out the fires, but they were not extinguished until a quarter of the town was entirely burned and a fine church reduced to ashes.

When the buccaneers found they could squeeze nothing more out of the town, they went on board their ships, carrying with them all the plunder and booty they had collected, and among their spoils were about five hundred slaves, of all ages and both sexes, who had been offered an opportunity to ransom themselves, but who, of course, had no money with which to buy their freedom, and who were now condemned to a captivity worse than anything they had ever known before.

Now the eight ships with their demon crews sailed away over the lake toward Maracaibo.  It was quite possible for them to get out to sea without revisiting this unfortunate town, but as this would have been a very good thing for them to do, it was impossible for them to do it; no chance to do anything wicked was ever missed by these pirates.  Consequently L’Olonnois gave orders to drop anchor near the city, and then he sent some messengers ashore to inform the already half-ruined citizens that unless they sent him thirty thousand pieces of eight he would enter their town again, carry away everything they had left, and burn the place to the ground.  The poor citizens sent a committee to confer with the pirates, and while the negotiations were going on some of the conscienceless buccaneers went on shore and carried off from one of the great churches its images, pictures, and even its bells.  It was at last arranged that the citizens should pay twenty thousand pieces of eight, which was the utmost sum they could possibly raise, and, in addition to this, five hundred head of beef-cattle, and the pirates promised that if this were done they would depart and molest the town no more.  The money was paid, the cattle were put on board the ships, and to the unspeakable relief of the citizens, the pirate fleet sailed away from the harbor.

But it would be difficult to express the horror and dismay of those same citizens when, three days afterward, those pirate ships all came back again.  Black despair now fell upon the town; there was nothing more to be stolen, and these wretches must have repented that they had left the town standing, and had returned to burn it down.  But when one man came ashore in a boat bringing the intelligence that L’Olonnois could not get his largest ship across a bar at the entrance to the lake, and that he wanted a pilot to show him the channel, then the spirits of the people went up like one great united rocket, bursting into the most beautiful coruscations of sparks and colors.  There was nothing on earth that they would be so glad to furnish him as a pilot to show him how to sail away from their shores.  The pilot was instantly sent to the fleet, and L’Olonnois and his devastating band departed.