So they cast around for the one who had shot the messenger and they found a young man who had been passing by the spot, and even though he was not carrying a firearm they were pleased to think him guilty. His mother (Havana is not Tortuga, and young people have parents there) begged for clemency, overcome by tears, unable to understand what was going on. As there was no executioner now, nor anyone to fill in, he was sentenced to the gallows, in the belief that if there was no one capable of lopping off his head, anyone, they reasoned, could throw a rope around his neck; yet they were forced to delay the execution for some hours because no one managed to tie the knot successfully. Twice the youth was dashed to the ground without losing his life, while his mother roused herself from her bewildered state and began to figure out what to do, first informing the governor that the hangman’s knot had not done its work, upon which the governor pardoned the young man, setting it down in writing that if the All-Powerful and Eternal God had permitted the youth twice to escape death, the governor was not one to oppose the divine pardon. Still, the truth was that he, as a Spaniard, did not know how much one is soothed by shedding blood, nor how well this conquers all remorse and reestablishes one’s lost peace of mind; he being full of remorse and having no peace because he had killed the messenger and was about to kill an innocent person, but with such bad luck that by the time his letter reached the scaffold the hangman’s knot had now been made and the youth was already dead. However, this young man was not the one lamented so pitiably by the mother but another, she having managed to bribe several officials and substitute one of her slaves for her son, a fact never realized by the governor in his remorse because there were too many sons in that house to be able to tell one from another, though, as is well known, if a mother undertakes to do so she can recognize any son she may have.
Will I be able to continue this story without the heart of Smeeks, Le Trépaneur, Exquemeling? Could his eyes and ears endure the shock of the pirate’s life without going blind or deaf? I think instead that I should divest myself of all three — eyes, ears, and heart — and in order to describe how life is among the pirates, I should stick with the only weapon given me by le Nègre Miel when he died, when I promised to keep his memory throughout the eternity of mankind; because eyes and ears will be overwhelmed by blood and violence, and heart will not get us anywhere, going around in circles, incapable of following the order of time because for it time does not exist, events intertwine, come together, or are incompatible because all things remain subject to the law of violence, hatred, revenge, disorderliness, blood, and death.… I will be able to count on my memory alone in proceeding with my story. From this moment on, Le Trépaneur almost daily would be stained with the blood of those limbs half torn away by cannon shot and that he would have to remove completely — I, Le Trépaneur, sawing off so many limbs that I would be able to put together a large army with those that had been removed … an army as cruel and invincible as the one the pirates formed at that time, because the remaining limbs would take on names which would be used later on in the fighting by whoever possessed them:
Exterminator
Braconneur
Passe-pour-tout
En Rade
Stonebreaker
Wingy
Razor
Screamer
Slow Fuse
Naked Sword
Feu-de-joie
et cetera, et cetera
Unless, perhaps, I have not already used more than memory in relating what I have set down.
SEVEN
The following morning, recovered from and with the help of the feasting and from and with the help of the drinking, L’Olonnais ordered the first squadron to inspect the neighboring areas. He did not wish to make use of the Indians on land, and he left them as our rear guard at the lake and in the gulf. Fifty men went out to find someone, anyone at all, in order to discover where all the people of Maracaibo were, but their persistence was futile. Even though they did find a small group and tortured them all, and even though he had one of them hacked to pieces in front of the others, threatening them with the same fate if they did not reveal where their riches were and where the other citizens had gone to, the most he was able to get was directions to another place, and he ordered his men to go there quickly — only to verify that it had already been abandoned (they having the plains and as a nearby shelter the fortified city), upon which he ordered the attack on Gibraltar, a town not far distant.
Many of the two thousand people of Maracaibo had taken refuge in Gibraltar, but just as many others, the men above all, fled the latter town every day, terrified that because of the fearful interrogation methods used by L’Olonnais, someone might betray them; so that, just like animals, they distrusted their fathers, their brothers, their children, digging a new hole for themselves every day, suffering hunger and thirst; while we freebooters were enjoying the benefit of their munificent homes and larders. But for L’Olonnais, enjoying merely what they had left behind (of which there was much, a great amount of loot) was not sufficient. He wanted everything; and more than anything else, he wanted them, and he wanted to fight. So that two weeks after having landed, we turned toward Gibraltar, loading part of the loot on board together with the few prisoners we had been able to take, and leaving a prudent force in Maracaibo to cover our return. We disembarked a few leagues from the town, near La Ribera. One of the Bravos showed us the way. All worked up, well fed, our knapsacks filled with good provisions and very little alcohol running through our veins, and possessed by a strange mood of childish joy, we seemed like something more than pirates. To take possession of the city without having to struggle for it, to be enjoying the loot without bloodshed, had quickened our blood. Up until the moment of leaving Maracaibo we had not lost a single one of our own men, and we had neither sick nor wounded; though on the road some began to show signs of having contracted a strange fever, but they pretended not to have anything wrong and we pretended not to notice how weak they were. For several days we had been lords while staying in Maracaibo without having fought for it; we had eaten at their tables, the very tables of the previous lords, without having bloodied our hands to do so! So we scarcely gave a thought to the terrible road that would take us to Gibraltar, on the southern part of the lake, where the land became more swampy. The closer we got to Gibraltar, the more nervous the Bravo guide became, as if something odd had happened, or were about to happen, although L’Olonnais interpreted his nervousness as due to the fact that he was plotting something against us, that he was going to plunge us into an affair that would be our ruin; but it was impossible for us to talk to him and discover if he was betraying us because he spoke nothing but his mother tongue. But only by L’Olonnais was the Indian’s agitation noticed. The rest of us paid no attention to him, although had it not occurred to us that he was guiding us in error, deceived as we were by a false path the Spaniards had built to entrap us, we would not have awakened in time from so pleasant a sensation, and perhaps we would have lost the battle.