When they had stripped her of all they thought worth taking, they ran one of the cannon to the open hatch, loaded it and crammed it full of balls to the muzzle; then they pointed it down the hold and fired it, and were soon on board their own craft.
"The charge must have torn a great hole in the ship's bottom, for I could see she was settling down in the water before we had left her five minutes, and in a quarter of an hour she gave a sudden lurch and sank.
As I was in for it now, I knew the best thing was to put a good face on it, so I lent a hand at shifting the cargo and did my best to seem contented.

We sailed off in company, and in the morning when I came on deck I found the two craft riding side by side in a land locked harbor.
"A few minutes later the boats were lowered and the work of getting the cargo on shore began.

It was clear enough that this was the pirates' headquarters; for there were lots of huts built on the sloping sides of the inlet, and a number of men and women stood gathered on the shore to receive us as we landed.

The women were of all countries, English and French, Dutch, Spaniards, and Portuguese, with a good sprinkling of dark skinned natives.

All the white women had been taken prisoners at some time or other from vessels which had fallen into the pirates' hands, and though most of them must have been miserable enough at heart, poor creatures, they all made a show of being glad to see the men back again.
It was but a week, I learned, since the pirates had sailed, and it was considered a great stroke of luck that they should so soon have effected a capture.
"No one attended to me, but I worked hard all day with the others rowing backward and forward between the shore and the ship.