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And the men—all the blustering Brotherhood of Tortuga; the old, expert pirates of Goaves; Frenchmen, Netherlanders, English, and Portuguese—the embattled outcasts of the world. Canoe loads of slaves who had escaped the Spaniards paddled in, drawn to this expedition by a thirsting for their master's blood. The slaves were Caribs and negroes and fevered whites. Little groups of hunters appeared on the beaches of jungled islands and took ship for the south side of Tortuga.

Among the major ships were tall frigates and galleons which had been captured in old engagements. When the time came for departure, Captain Morgan had thirty-seven ships under his hand, and two thousand fighting men in addition to the mariners and boys. In the crowd of shipping lay three slim, clean sloops from New England. They had not come to fight, but to trade—powder for plunder, whiskey for gold. Powder and whiskey were the two great weapons of offense. And besides, these Plymouth men would buy old, useless ships for the iron and cordage they contained.

Captain Morgan had sent hunters into the woods to shoot cattle, and ships to the mainland to steal grain. When all returned, there was food on hand for a voyage.

No one save Cœur de Gris and Henry Morgan, of all this polyglot press of men who had come at the call of conquest, knew where that conquest was to be. No one dreamed where they would be sailing and whom fighting at the journey's end. The