The pirates worked very hard at this, although they had not the slightest idea how they were to pass the castle and get away with the plunder after they had obtained it.
When the wrecks had been stripped of everything of value, the time came for demanding a ransom for not burning the town and hanging the prisoners, and as the poor citizens knew very well what they might expect, they sent word to the admiral, who had escaped to the castle, begging him to accede to the demands of Morgan, and to let the wretched pirates go.

But the admiral, Don Alonso, was a thoroughbred Spaniard, and he would listen to no such cowardly suggestion.

He would consent to no ransom being paid, and on no account would he allow the pirates to pass the channel.

The citizens, however, who knew what was good for them, raised the money, and paid the ransom in coin and cattle, and Morgan declared that if the admiral would not let him out of the lake, he would have to attend to that matter himself.
But before he made another bold stroke against the enemy his stingy and niggardly spirit urged him to defend himself against his friends, and before endeavoring to leave he ordered a division of the spoils.

Many of the goods taken from the two towns were on board the different vessels of the fleet, and he was very much afraid that if his comrades, who commanded the other ships, should be so fortunate as to get out to sea, they would sail away with the booty they carried, and he would not see any of it.