And he led the way down the rugged heights, the others following passively and in moody silence.
They crossed the valley, through which a river went foaming and flashing over huge rocks and boulders, great fractured masses from the overhanging cliffs, that seemed the ruins of an ancient world. The stream was shallow though wild; and crossing from rock to rock they made their way over without much trouble or any accident. The ascent of the steep heights beyond was not so easy. Three days were consumed in making a circuit, and finding a tolerable way for clambering up the mountain. Cold and weary, hungry and sick at heart, the elder D’Erlach and Philip le Borne, were ready to lie down and yield the struggle. Despair had set its paralyzing grasp upon their hearts; but the considerate care, the cheerful courage, the invigorating suggestion, of the younger D’Erlach, still sufficed to strengthen them for renewed effort, when they were about to yield to fate. He adopted the legend of the great city. These rocks were a fitting portal to such a world of empire and treasure. He dwelt with emotion upon its supposed wonders, and found reasons of great significance for assuming it to be near at hand. And they toiled after him up the terrible heights, momently expecting to hear him cry aloud from the summit for which they toiled—“Eureka! Here is the Grand Copal!” In this progress the younger D’Erlach was always the leader; Philip le Borne struggled after him, though at a long distance, and, more feeble than either, the elder D’Erlach brought up the rear. Alphonse had nearly reached the bald height to which he was climbing, when a fearful cry assailed him from behind. He looked about instantly, only in time to see the form of le Borne disappear from the cliff, plunging headlong into the chasm a thousand feet below. The victim was too terrified to cry. Life was probably extinguished long before his limbs were crushed out of all humanity amongst the jagged masses of the fractured rocks which received them. The cry was from the elder D’Erlach. He saw the dreadful spectacle at full; beheld his companion shoot suddenly down beside him, with outstretched arms, as if imploring the succor for which he had no voice to cry. He saw, and, overcome with horror, sank down in a convulsion upon the narrow ledge which barely sufficed to sustain his person. Alphonse D’Erlach darted down to his succor, and clung to him till he had revived.
“Where is Philip?” demanded the elder brother.
“We are all that remain, my brother,” was the reply.
The other covered his eyes with his hands, as if to shut out thought; and it was some time before he could be persuaded to re-attempt the ascent. Alphonse clung to his side as he did so; never suffered him to be beyond reach of his arm, and, after several hours of the greatest toil, succeeded in placing him safely upon the broad summit of the mountain. And what a prospect had they obtained—what a world of wonder, of beauty and sublimity—fertile realms of forest; boundless valleys of verdure; illimitable seas of mountain range, their billowy tops rolling onward and onward, till the eye lost them in the misty vapors of the sea of sky beyond.
But the eyes of our adventurers were not sensible to the sublimity and beauty of the scene. They beheld nothing but its wildness, its stillness, its coldness, its loneliness, its dread and dreary solitude.
“We are but two, my brother, two of all,” said the elder D’Erlach. “Let us die together, my brother.”
“If fate so pleases,” was the reply—“well! But let us hope that we may live together yet.”
“I am done with hope. I am too weary for hope. My heart is frozen. I see nothing but death, and in death I see something very sweet in the slumber which it promises. Why should we live? It is but a prolongation of the struggle. Let us die. Oh! Alphonse, your life is not less precious to me than mine own. I would freely give mine, at any moment, to render yours more safe; yet, if you agree, my hand shall strike the dagger into your heart, if yours will do for mine the same friendly office.”
“No more, my brother! Let us not speak or think after this fashion. Our frail and feeble bodies are forever grudgeful of the authority which our souls exercise upon them. If they are weary, they would escape from weariness, at sacrifices of which they know not the extent; would they sleep, they are not unwilling that the sleep should be death, so that they may have respite from toil. My brother, I will not suffer my body so to sway my soul if I can help it. I will still live, and still toil, and still struggle onward, and when I perish it shall be with my foot advanced, my hand raised, and my eye guiding, in the progress onward—forever onward. It will be time enough to think of death when death grapples us and there is no help. But, till that moment, I mock and defy the tempter, who would persuade me to rest before my limbs are weary and my strength is gone.”
“But, Alphonse, my limbs are weary, and my strength is gone.”
“Let your heart be strong; keep your soul from weariness, and your limbs will receive strength. Sleep, brother, under the shelter of this great rock, while I kindle fire at your feet, and prepare something for you to eat.”
And while the elder brother slept, the other watched and warmed him, and some shreds of meat dried in the sun, and a slender supply of meal corns, parched by the fire, with a vessel of water, was prepared and ready for him at awakening.
But he awakened in no better hope than when he had laid down. He ate and was not strengthened. The hope had gone out from his heart, the fire from his eye, his soul lacked the cheerful vigor necessary to exertion, and his physical strength was nearly exhausted.
“Would that I had not awakened!” was his mournful exclamation, as his eyes opened once more to the dreary prospect from the bald eminence of that desolate mountain-tower. “Would that I might close mine eyes and sleep, my brother, sleep ever, or awake to consciousness only in a better world.”
“This world is ours, my brother,” responded the younger, impetuously; “and, if we are men, if we had no misgivings—if we could feel only as we might—that the weariness of this day would find a wing to-morrow; we should conquer it, and be worthy of better worlds hereafter. But he who gives himself up to weariness, will neither find nor deserve a wing. Thou hast eaten—thou hast drunken,—thou shouldst be refreshed. I have neither eaten nor drunken, since we set off at dawn this morning for our progress across the valley.”
“Reproach me not, Alphonse,” replied the other; “thou hast a strength and a courage both denied to me.”
“Believe it not; be resolute in thy courage, and thy strength will follow. It is the heart, verily, that is the first to fail.”
“Mine is dead within me!”
“Yet another effort, mon frére,—yet one more effort! The valley below us looks soft and inviting. There shall we find shelter from the bleak winds that sweep these bald summits.”
“It is cold! and my limbs stiffen beneath me,” answered the other, as he rose slowly to resume a march which was more painful to his thoughts than any which he had of death. But for his deference to the superior will of the younger brother, he had surely never risen from the spot. But he rose, and wearily followed after the bold Alphonse, who was already picking his way down the steep sides of the mountain.
We need not follow the brothers through the painful details of a progress which had few varieties to break its monotony, and nothing to relieve its gloom. Two days have made a wonderful difference in the appearance of both. Wild, stern and wretched enough before in aspect, there was now a grim, gaunt, wolf-like expression in the features of Alphonse D’Erlach, which showed that privation and labor were working fearfully upon the mind as well as the body. He was emaciated—his eyes sunken and glossy, staring intensely yet without expression—his hair matted upon his brows, and his movements rather convulsive than energetic. His soul was as strong as ever—his will as inflexible; but the tension of the mind had been too great, and nature was beginning to fail in the support of this rigor. He now strove but little in the work of soothing and cheering his less courageous brother. He had no longer a voice of encouragement, and he evidently began to think that the death for which the other had so much yearned would perhaps be no unwelcome visitor. Still, as if the maxims which we have heard him utter were a portion of his real nature, his cry was forever “On,” and still his hand was outstretched towards blue summits that seemed to hide another world in the gulfs beyond them.
“I can go no farther, Alphonse. I will go no farther. The struggle is worse than any death. I feel that I must sleep. I feel that sleep would be sweeter than anything you can promise.”
“If you sleep, you die.”
“I shall rejoice!”
“You must not, brother. I will help you. I will carry you.”
He made the effort as he spoke—for a moment raised up the failing form of his brother—staggered forward, and sank himself beneath the burden.
“Ha! ha!” he laughed hoarsely; “that we should fail with the Golden Copal in sight! But if we rest, we shall recover. Let us rest. Let us kindle here a fire, my brother, for my limbs feel cold also.”
“It is death, Alphonse.”
“Death! Pshaw! We cannot fail now; now that we are nearly at the summit. I tell you, brother, we are almost at the portals of that wondrous city. Once I doubted there were such city, but I have seen glimpses of towers, and methought but now I beheld the window in a turret from which a fair woman was looking forth. See now! Look you to the right—there where you see the mountain sink as it were, then suddenly rise again, the slopes leading gently up to a tower and a wall. The evening sunlight rests upon it. You see it is of a dusky white, and the window shows clearly through the stone, and some one moves within it. Dost thou see, my brother?”
“I see nothing but the sky and ocean. It is the waters that roll about us.”
“It is the winds that you hear, as they sweep down from yonder mountains. But where I point your eyes is certainly a tower, a great castle—no doubt one that commands the ascent to the mountains.”
“Brother, this is so sweet!”
“What?”
“Ah! what a blessed fortune! Escaped from the bloody Spaniard, afar from the inhospitable land of the Floridian, to see once more these sweet waters and the well-known places.”
“What waters? What places?”
“Do you know them not—our own Seine and the cottage, Alphonse? Ha! ha! there they are! I knew they would come forth. Old Ulrich leads them; and Bertha is there, and brings little Etienne by the hand. And, ah! ha! ha! Joy, mother, we are come again!”
“He dreams! he dreams! If thus he dies, with such a dream, there can be no pain in it. Let him dream! let him dream!”
And Alphonse D’Erlach hastened to kindle the flames, and he tore from his own body the garment to warm his dying brother; and he clasped his hands convulsively as he listened to the faint and broken words that fell from his lips, subsiding at last into,
“Mother, we are come!”
And then he lay speechless. The younger brother turned away, and looked yearningly to the mountains.
“If I can only reach yon castle, he should be saved. It is not so far! but this valley to cross—but that low range of rocks to overcome. It shall be done. I will but cover him warmly with leaves and throw fresh brands upon the fire, and before night I shall return with help.”
And he did as he said. He threw fresh brands upon the fire; he wrapped the senseless form of his brother in leaves and moss; and, stooping down, grasped his hand and printed a long, last kiss upon his lips. The eyes of the dying man opened, but they were fixed and glassy. But Alphonse saw not the look. His own eyes were upon the castellated mountain. He sped away, feebly but eagerly, and as he descended into the valley, he looked back ever and anon; and as he looked, his voice, almost in whispers, would repeat the words—“Keep in heart, brother. I will bring you help;” and thus he sped from the scene.
The day waned rapidly, but still the young Alphonse sped upon his mission. He crossed the plain; he urged his progress up the ridgy masses that formed the foreground to the great cliffs from which the castled towers still appeared to loom forth upon his sight. He cast a momentary glance upon the sun, wan, sinking with a misty halo among the tops of the great sea-like mountains that rolled their blue and billowy summits in the east, circumscribing his vision, and he murmured—
“I shall be in time. Do not despair, my brother. I will soon be with you and bring you succor.”
And thus he ascended the stony ridges, height upon height gradually ascending, till he came to a sudden gorge—a chasm rent by earthquake and convulsion from the bosom of the great mountain for which he sped. He looked down upon the gorge, and as he descended, he turned his eye to the lone plateau upon which his brother had been laid to dream, and cried:
“I go from your eyes, my brother, but I go to bring you help.”
And he passed with tottering steps, and a feebleness still increasing, but which his sovereign will was loth to acknowledge, down into the chasm, and was suddenly lost from sight.
Scarcely had he thus passed into the great shadow of the gorge, when the howl of wolves awakened the echoes of the valley over which he had gone. And soon they appeared, five in number, trotting over the ground which he had traversed, and, with their noses momently set to earth, sending up an occasional cry which announced the satisfaction of their scent. Now they ascend the stony ridges. For a moment they halt and gather upon the verge of the great chasm; then they scramble down into its hollows, and howling as they go and jostling in the narrow gorges, they too pass from sight into the obscurity of the mountain shadows.
Another spectacle follows in their place. Sudden, along the rocky ledges of the high precipices which overhang the gorge, darts forth a graceful and commanding form. It is a woman that appears, young and majestic, lofty in carriage, yet winning in aspect. She belongs to the red races of the Apalachian, but she is fairest among her people. The skin of a panther forms her mantle, and her garments are of cotton, richly stained. She carries a bow in her hand, and a quiver at her back. Her brows are encircled by a tiara of crimson cotton, from which arise the long white plumes of the heron. She claps her hands, and cries aloud to others still in the shadows of the mountain. They dart out to join her, a group of graceful-looking women and of lofty and vigorous men. She points to the gorge beyond, and fits an arrow to her bow. The warriors do likewise, and her shaft speeds upon its mission of death, shot down amidst the shadows of the gorge. A cry of pain from the wolf,—another and another, as the several shafts of the warriors speed in the same direction. Then one of the warriors hurls a blazing torch into the abyss, and the wounded wolves speed back through the gorges, and the hunters dart after them with shafts, and blazing torches, and keen pursuit. Meanwhile, the Apalachian princess descends the precipice with footsteps wondrous sure and fast. Her damsels follow her with cries of eagerness, and soon they disappear—all save the hunters, who pursue the wolves with well-aimed darts, till they fall howling one by one, and perish in their tracks. Then the warriors scalp their prey and turn back, pass through the gorge, and follow in the footsteps of their princess. The sun sinks, the night closes upon the valley, and all is silent.
The tidings of the fearful massacre of the Huguenots in Florida, as well in Spanish, as in French accounts, at length reached France. Deep was the feeling of horror and indignation which they everywhere excited among the people. Catholics, not less than Protestants, felt how terrible was the cruelty thus inflicted upon humanity, how insolent the scorn thus put upon the flag of the country. Wild and bitter was the cry of anguish sent up by the thousand bereaved widows and orphans of the murdered men. But this cry, this feeling, this sense of suffering and shame, awakened no sympathies in the court of France. The king, Charles IX., heard the “supplication” of the wives and children of the sufferers, without according any answer to their prayer. The blood of nearly nine hundred victims cried equally to earth and heaven for vengeance, and cried in vain to the earthly sovereign. He had no ear for the sorrows and the wrongs of heresy; and the plaint of humanity was stifled in the supposed interests of religion. Charles was most regally indifferent to a crime which relieved him of so many troublesome subjects; and was at that very time, meditating the most summary processes for still farther diminishing their numbers. He was yet to provide an appropriate finish to such a history of massacre in the bloody tragedy of St. Bartholomew. The wrong done to the honor of his flag and nation, by a rival power, was not felt. We have already hinted the strong conjecture, urged by historians, that the Spanish expedition, under Melendez, was planned with the full privity and concurrence of the king of France. His conduct, at this period, would seem fully to justify the suspicion. His existing relations with his brother of Spain were not of a sort to be periled now by the exhibition of his sympathies with a cause, and on behalf of a sect, which both monarchs had reason to hate and fear, and were preparing to extirpate.
But, if the Court of France demanded no redress for the massacre of its people, and that of Spain offered none, either redress or apology, there was yet a deep and intense passion dwelling in the heart of the one nation, and yearning for revenge upon that of the other. There was still a chivalrous feeling in France which showed itself superior to the exactions of sect or party, and which brooded with terrible intensity over the bloody fortunes of the French in Florida. This moody meditation at length found its fitting exponent. The sentiment that stirs earnestly in the popular heart will always, sooner or later, obtain a fitting voice; and where it burns justifiably for vengeance, it will not long be wanting in a weapon. The avenger arose in due season to satisfy the demands of justice!
The Chevalier, Dominique de Gourgues, was a Gascon gentleman, born at Mont de Marsan, in the County of Cominges. His family was one of considerable distinction. It had always been devotedly attached to the Catholic religion, nor had he ever for a moment faltered in the same faith. His career had been a remarkable one, signalized by great valor, and the most extreme vicissitudes of fortune. He had served in the armies of France during the long and capricious struggles in Italy, which had been the chief arena for conflict in the reigns of Charles the Eighth, of Louis XII., of Francis the First, and down to the present period. Here he had associated, under the command of Brissac and others, with that valiant brother Gascon, Blaize de Montluc, who, in his commentaries, would probably have told us much about the prowess of Gourgues, if he had not been so greatly occupied with the narrative of his own.[24] But the forbearance of Montluc has not deprived us of all the testimony which belongs to the fame of the chevalier. Of all the subaltern officers of his time, no one achieved a more brilliant reputation. Among the Gascons, confessedly distinguished above all others by their reckless daring, and headlong eagerness after glory in battle, the courage of Gourgues was such as raised him to the rank of a hero of romance. His youthful eyes had opened upon the latest fields of that race of heroes of whom Bayard was the superior and perhaps the last. He was one of the Sampsons of that wondrous band, whose wars, according to Trivulcio—one not the least remarkable among them,—were those of the giants;—the Swiss, in the fullest vigor of their martial fame, and at the height of their insolence;—the Spaniards, with Hernan de Cordova, the great captain, at their head, and crowning the career of Charles V. with a power and a lustre which his own merits did not deserve;—the Italians, under the sway of, and deriving their spirit from, the fierce martial pontiff, Julius II., and the French, boasting of a cavalry, headed by Bayard, La Palisse and others, worthy of such associates, and such as the armies of Europe had never beheld before. Montluc, who had been trained in part in the same house with Bayard, and Boiteres, who, as a page of the knight sans peur et sans reproche, makes a famous figure in the chronicles of le loyal serviteur, being among the leaders whom the Chevalier de Gourgues followed into battle. He partook of their spirit, and proved himself worthy to sustain the declining honors of chivalry. But his fortunes were as adverse as his merits were distinguished. With thirty men, near Sienna, in Tuscany, he sustained, for a long time, the shock of a large division of the Spanish army. He saw, at length, every man of his command fall around him, and was made a prisoner. The captive of the Spaniard, in that day, when the emperor of the country and his favorite generals showed themselves utterly and equally insensible to good faith and generosity, was to be a slave. They conducted war with little regard to the rules that prevailed among civilized nations. The valor that Gourgues displayed, instead of commending him to their admiration and favor, only provoked their fury; and they punished, with shameful bonds, those brave actions which the noble heart prefers to applause and honor. Gourgues was transferred in chains to the gallies. In this degrading condition, chained to the oar, he was captured by the links off the coast of Sicily; the Turks then being in alliance, to the shame of Christendom, with the French monarch, and against the Spaniards. He was conducted by his new captors to Rhodes and thence to Constantinople. Sent once more to sea, under his new master, he was retaken by a Maltese galley, and thus recovered his liberty. But his latter adventures had given him a taste for the sea. His progresses brought him to the coast of Africa, to Brazil, and, according to Lescarbot, though the point is doubted, to the Pacific Ocean. The details of this career are not given to us, but the results seem to have been equally creditable to the fame, and of benefit to the fortunes of our chevalier. He returned to Mont de Marsan, with the reputation of being one of the most able and hardy of all the navigators of his time. He had scarcely established himself fairly in his ancient home, where he had invested all the fruits of his toils and enterprise, when the tidings came of the capture of La Caroline, and the massacre of the French in Florida by Melendez. He felt for the honor of France, for the grief of the widows and orphans thus cruelly bereaved, and was keenly reminded of that brutal nature of the Spaniard, under which he had himself suffered so long, and in a condition so humiliating to a noble spirit. He had his own wrongs and those of his country to avenge. He brooded over the necessity before him, with a passion that acquired new strength from contemplation, and finally resolved never to give himself rest till he had exacted full atonement, in the blood of the usurpers in Florida, for the crime of which they had been guilty to his people and himself.
This sublime purpose—sublime by reason of the intense individuality which it betrayed—the proud, strong and defiant will, which took no counsel from the natural fears of the subject, and was totally unrebuked by the placid indifference of the sovereign to his own duties—was not, however, to be indulged openly; but was compelled, by force of circumstances; the better to effect its object—to subdue itself to the eye, to cloak its real purposes, to suffer not the nearest or best friend to conceive the intense design which was working in the soul of the hero. We have seen that the Marechal, Blaize de Montluc, a very celebrated warrior, a very brave fellow, an accomplished leader and a good man, though a monstrous braggart—the very embodiment of Gascon self-esteem, had long been a personal friend of the Chevalier de Gourgues. Montluc was the king’s lieutenant in Guyenne, and to him De Gourgues proceeded to obtain his commission for sailing upon the high seas. Montluc, like himself, was a Catholic; but, unlike de Gourgues, was a bitter hater of the Huguenots. Our chevalier had been too long a prisoner with Spaniard and Turk—too long a cruiser upon lonely oceans, confined to a little world which knew and cared nothing for sects and parties, to feel very acutely as a politician in matters of religion. Such a life as that which he had so long led, was well calculated to conduce to toleration. “Vengeance is mine:” saith the Lord; and he was very willing to believe that in his own good time, the Lord will do himself justice upon the offender. He was no hater of Calvin or the Protestants—was quite willing that they should pray and preach after the desires of their own hearts; and did by no means sympathise with his friend, Montluc, in regard to the heretics whom he denounced. But he said nothing of this to the Marechal. He knew that nothing could be said safely, in relation to this vexing struggle, which tore the bowels of the nation with perpetual strifes. He had been taught policy by painful experience; and, though boiling with intense excitement, could conceal the secret flame with an exterior of snow, such as shrouds the top of the burning Orizaba. He found the old knight in the enjoyment of a degree of repose, which was no ways desirable to one of his character. The man of whom the epitaph records—written by himself:—
was not the person to feel grateful in the possession of an office which gave no exercise to his restless and martial propensities.
“We are shelved, mon ami,” he said with a grim smile to De Gourgues, as they sat together in the warm chamber of the speaker:—“We are shelved. We are under petticoat government. Lords and rulers are now made by the pretty women of the Court, and an old soldier like myself, who has saved the monarchy, as you know, a dozen times, has nothing now to do but to hang up his armor, and watch it while it falls to pieces with the rust. But I have made myself a name which is famous throughout Europe, and for the opportunity to do this, I must needs be grateful to my king. I have the lieutenancy of Guyenne, but how long I am to have it is the question. There are others who hunger after the shoes I wear; but whether they will fit so well upon the feet of Monsieur, the Marquis de Villars, must be for other eyes to determine. All I know, is, that I am laid up forever. Strength fails, and favor fails, and I chafe at my own lack of strength. I shall never be happy so long as my knees refuse to bend as I would mount horse, yet bend even too freely when I would speed on foot. But what is this expedition for which you desire the royal seal? Certainly, we Gascons are the most restless of all God’s creatures. Here now are you but just arrived at home, and beginning to make merry with your friends, and here you are, all at once, impatient to be upon the seas again. Well, you have won a great fame upon the ocean, and naturally desire to win still more. I’ faith, I feel a great desire to keep you company. I would be at work to the last, still doing, still conquering, and dying in the greatest of my victories. What says the Italian—‘Un bel mourir, tutta la vita onora!’ Did this adventure of yours, Monsieur, but promise a great battle, verily, I should like to share it with you.”
“Ah! Monsieur, my friend, your passion is no longer mine, though I am too much of the Gascon still, to fail, at the sound of the trumpet, to prick mine ears. But this adventure tells for fortune rather than fame. I find no fame a specific against famine. I would seek now after those worldly goods which neither of us looked to find in the wars with the Spaniard. And for which reason, failing to find, we are in danger now of being put aside by ladies’ minions, and the feathered creatures of the Court. There is great gain now to be won by a visit to the Coast of Benin, in Africa, whence we carry the negro cannibal, that he may be made a Christian by proper labor under Christian rule.”
And De Gourgues proceeded to unfold the history of the traffic in slaves, as it was carried on by all nations at that period; its marvellous profit and no less marvellous benefits to the untutored and miserable heathen. The Marechal listened with great edification.
“Ah! Monsieur, were I now what you knew me when we fought in Tuscany, now nearly thirty years ago! But it is too late. I must ever remain what I am, a poor Gascon, as my sovereign hath ever known me; too heedful of his fortune ever to give proper tendance to my own!”
The Chevalier de Gourgues received his commission, and his preparations for the expedition were at once begun. He converted his goods and chattels into money—his lands and moveables. He sold everything that he possessed. Nor did he rest here. He borrowed of friends and neighbors. His credit was good—his reputation great—himself beloved. It was easy to inspire confidence in the ostensible objects of his expedition. The world then conceived very differently of the morals of such an enterprise, than it does at present. The moneys thus realized were employed in arming two roberges, or brigantines,—ships of light burthen, resembling the Spanish caravels; and one patache, or tender, a vessel modelled after the frigate of the Levant, and designed for penetrating shallow harbors. One hundred and fifty soldiers, and eighty sailors, formed his complement of men, of whom one hundred were armed with the cross-bow. There were many gentlemen, volunteers, in the expedition; and De Gourgues had taken the precaution to secure the services of one who had been a trumpeter under Laudonniere, and had made his escape with that commander. Provisions for a year were laid in; and every preparation having been made, and every precaution taken, as well with the view to secrecy, as to the prosecution of the object, the squadron sailed for Bordeaux, on the second day of August, 1567, just two years after the flight of Laudonniere from Florida. But the fates, at first, did not seem to smile upon the enterprise. Baffled by contrary winds, our chevalier was at length driven for shelter into the Charente, where he lay till the twenty-second, when he put to sea, only to encounter new disappointments. His ships were separated by a severe tempest, and some time elapsed before they were re-united. He had provided against this event by ordering his rendezvous at the mouth of the Rio del Oro, upon the coast of Africa. From this point he ranged the coast down to Cape Blanco, where, instigated by the Portuguese, he was assailed by three African chiefs, with their naked savages, whom he beat off in two actions. He then proceeded and continued in safety upon his route, until he reached Cape Verd, when he turned his prows suddenly in the direction of America. The first land which he made in this progress was Dominica, one of the smaller Antilles; thence he drew on to Porto Rico, and next to Mona; the cacique of which place supplied him liberally with fresh provisions. Stretching away for the continent, he encountered a tempest, which constrained him to seek shelter in the port of San Nicholas, on the west side of Hispaniola, where he repaired his vessels, greatly shattered by the storm, but where he vainly endeavored to lay in new supplies of bread; his biscuit having been mostly damaged by the same cause;—the Spaniards, with great inhospitality, refusing him all supplies of food. Scarcely had he left San Nicholas, when he was encountered by a hurricane, which drove him upon the coast, exposing him to the most imminent peril, and from the danger of which he escaped with great difficulty; he gained, after many hardships, the west side of the Island of Cuba, and found temporary respite at Cape San Antonio, where he went on shore for a season.
His worst dangers of the sea were over. He was now within two hundred leagues of Florida, his prows looking, with unobstructed vision, directly towards the enemies he sought. And now, for the first time, he deemed it proper to unfold to his people the true object of the expedition. He assembled together all his followers:
“Friends and comrades,” he said, “I have hitherto deceived you as to my objects. They were of a sort to require, in the distracted condition of our country, the utmost secrecy. It so happens that France, torn by rival religious factions, is not properly sensible of what is due to her honor and her people. I have chosen you, as persons whom I mostly know, as persons who know me, and have confidence in my courage, my honor, and my judgment. I have chosen you to achieve a great work for the honor of the French name, and for the safety of the French people. Though we quarrel and fight among ourselves at home, yet should it be a common cause, without distinction of party, to protect our people against the foreign enemy, and to avenge the cruelties they have been made to suffer. It is for a purpose of this nature, that I have brought you hither. I have heard many of you speak with tears and rage of the great crime of which the Spaniards, under Melendez, have been guilty, in butchering our unhappy countrymen in Florida; nine hundred widows and orphans have cried in vain for vengeance upon the cruel murderers. You know all this terrible history—you are Frenchmen and brethren of these unfortunate victims. You know the crime of our enemies, the Spaniards; always our enemies, and never more so than when they profess peace to us, and speak with smiles. What should be our crime, if we suffer them to escape just punishment for their butchery; if, with the means of vengeance in our hands, and our enemies before us, we longer delay the hour of retribution? We must avenge the murder of our countrymen; we must make the Spaniards of Florida atone, in blood, for the shame and affront which they have put upon the lilies of France! If you feel as I do, the day of vengeance and just judgment is at hand. That I am resolute in this object—that it fills my whole soul with but one feeling—my whole mind with but one thought—you may know, when you see that I have sold all my worldly goods, all the possessions that I have on earth, in order to obtain the means for the destruction of these Spaniards of Florida. I take for granted that you feel with me, that you are as jealous of the honor of your country as myself, and that you are prepared for any sacrifice—life itself—in this cause, at once so glorious, and so necessary to the fame and safety of our people. If our Frenchmen are to be butchered without a cause, and find no avenger, there is an end of the French name, and honor, and well-being; they will find no refuge on the face of the earth. Speak, then, my comrades. Let me hear that you feel and think and will resolve with me. I ask you to do nothing, and to peril nothing, beyond myself. I have already staked all my worldly fortunes on this one object. I now offer to march at your head, to give you the first example of self-sacrifice. Is there one of you who will refuse to follow?”
A speech so utterly unexpected, at first took his followers by surprise; but the appeal was too grateful to their real sympathies, their commander too much beloved, and the infusion of genuine Gascons too large among the adventurers, to make them hesitate in their decision. They felt the justice of the appeal; were warmed to indignation by the sense of injury and discredit cast upon the honor and the arms of France; and, soon recovering from their astonishment, they eagerly pledged themselves to follow wherever he should lead. With cries of enthusiasm they declared themselves ready for the work of vengeance; and, taking them in the humor which he had inspired, De Gourgues suffered not a moment’s unnecessary delay to interfere with his progress. Crowding all sail upon his vessels, he rapidly crossed the straits of Bahama, and stretched, with easy course, along the low shores of the Floridian.
It was not very long before his vessels drew in sight of one of the Forts of the Spaniards, situated at the entrance of May River. So little did they apprehend the approach of any French armament, that they saluted that of De Gourgues, as if they had been ships of their own nation, mistaking them as such. Our chevalier encouraged their mistake. He answered their salute, gun for gun; but he passed onward without any intercourse, and the night following entered the river, called by the Indians Tacatacourou, but to which the French had given the name of the Seine, some fifteen leagues distant.
Here, confounding the strangers with the Spaniards, a formidable host of Indians were prepared to give them battle. The red-men had by this time fully experienced the tender mercies of their brutal and bigoted neighbors; and had learned to contrast them unfavorably with what they remembered of the Frenchmen under Ribault and Laudonniere. With all the faults of the latter, they knew him really as a gentle and moderate commander; by no means blood-thirsty, and doing nothing in mere lust of power, wantonly, and with a spirit of malicious provocation only. There were also other influences at work among them, by which to impress them favorably towards the French, and make them bitterly hostile to the usurpers by whom they had been destroyed. It needed, therefore, only that Gourgues should make himself known to the natives, to discover their hostility. He employed for this purpose his trumpeter, who had served under Laudonniere, and was well known to the king, Satouriova, whose province lay along the waters of the Tacatacourou, and with whose tribe it was the good fortune of our Frenchmen to encounter. Satouriova, knew the trumpeter at once, and received him graciously. He soon revealed the existing relations between the red-men and the Spaniards, and was delighted when assured that the Frenchmen had come to renew and brighten the ancient chain of friendship which had bound the red-men in amity with the people of La Caroline. The interview was full of compliment and good feeling on both sides. The next day was designated for a grand conference between Satouriova and Gourgues. The interview opened with a wild and picturesque display, which, on the part of the Indians, loses nothing of its dignity because of its rudeness. The stem and simple manners of the red-men, their deliberation, their forbearance, the calm which overspreads their assemblies, the stately solemnity with which the orator rises to address them, their patient attention; these are ordinary characteristics, which make the spectator forgetful of their poverty, their rude condition, the inferiority of their weapons, and the ridiculous simplicity of their ornaments. Satouriova anticipated the objects of Gourgues. Before the latter could detail his designs, the savage declared his deadly hatred of the Spaniards. He was already assembling his people for their destruction. They should have no foothold on his territories!
All this was spoken with great vivacity; and he proceeded to give a long history of the wrongs done to his people by the usurpers. He recurred, then, to the terrible destruction of the Frenchmen at La Caroline, and at the Bay of Matanzas; and voluntarily pledged himself, with all his powers, to aid Gourgues in the contemplated work of vengeance.
The response of our chevalier was easy. He accepted the pledges of Satouriova with delight. He had not come, he said, with any present design to assail the Spaniards, but rather with the view to renew the ancient alliance of the Frenchmen with the Floridians; and, should he find them in the proper temper to rise against the usurpers, then, to bring with him an armament sufficiently powerful to rid the country of the intruders. But, as he found Satouriova in such excellent spirit, and filled with so brave a resolution, he was determined, even with the small force at his command, to second the chief in his desires to rid himself of his bad neighbors.
“Do you but join your forces to mine,—bring all your strength—put forth all your resolution—show your best valor, and be faithful to your pledges, and I promise you that we will destroy the Spaniards, and root them out of your country!”
The Cassique was charmed with this discourse, and a league, offensive and defensive, was readily agreed upon between the parties. Satouriova, at the close of the conference, brought forward and presented to Gourgues a French boy, named Pierre de Bré, who had sought refuge with him when La Caroline was taken, and whom he had preserved with care, as his own son, in spite of all the efforts of the Spaniards to get him into their power. The boy was a grateful gift to Gourgues; useful as an interpreter, but particularly grateful as one of the first fruits of his mission. That night Satouriova despatched a score or more of emissaries, in as many different directions, to the tribes of the interior. These, each, bore in his hands the war-macana, le Baton Rouge, the painted red-club, which announces to the young warriors the will of their superior. The runner speeds with this sign of blood to the distant village, strikes the war-post in its centre, waves his potent sign to the people, declares the place of gathering, and darts away to spread still more the tidings. When he faints, the emblem is seized by another, who continues on the route. In this way, the whole nation is aroused, as by the sudden flaming of a thousand mountain beacons. A single night will suffice to alarm and assemble the people of an immense territory. The Indian runner, day by day, will out-travel any horse. The result of this expedition was visible next day, to Gourgues and his people. The chiefs of a score of scattered tribes, with all their best warriors, were assembled with Satouriova, to welcome the Frenchmen to the land.
Satouriova, surrounded by his kinsmen, his allies, and subordinate chiefs, appeared in all his state on the banks of the river, almost with the rising of the sun. There were, in immediate attendance, the Paracoussies or Cassiques. Tacatacourou—whose tribe, living along its banks for the time, gave the name to the river—Helmacana, Athoree, Harpaha, Helmacapé, Helicopilé, Mollova, and a great many others. We preserve these names with the hope that they may help to conduct the future antiquary to the places of their habitation. Being all assembled, all in their dignities, each with his little band of warriors, numbering from ten to two hundred men, they despatched a special message to the vessels of Gourgues, inviting him to appear among them. By a precautionary arrangement the escort of our chevalier appeared without their weapons, those of the red-men being likewise removed from their persons, and concealed in the neighboring woods. Gourgues yielded himself without scruple to the arrangements of his tawny host. He was conducted by a deferential escort to the mossy wood where the chiefs had assembled, and placed at the right hand of Satouriova. The weeds and brambles had been carefully pulled away from the spot—the place had been made very clean, and the seat provided for Gourgues was raised, like that of Satouriova, and nicely strewn, in the same manner, with a mossy covering. With his trumpeter and Pierre de Bré, the captain of the French found no embarrassment in pursuing the conference. It was protracted for some time, as is usually the case with Indian treaties, and involved many considerations highly important to the enterprise; the number of the Spaniards, the condition of their fortresses, their vigilance, and all points essential to be known, before venturing to assail them. Much time was consumed in mutual courtesies. Gifts were exchanged between the parties; De Gourgues receiving from Satouriova, among other things, a chain of silver, which the red chief graciously and with regal air cast about the neck of the chevalier.
It was while the conference thus proceeded, that a cry without was heard from among the great body of the tribes assembled. Shouts full of enthusiasm announced the approach of a favorite; and soon the Frenchmen distinguished the words, “Holata Cara!” “Holata Cara!”[25] which we may translate, “Beloved Chief or Captain,” and which preceded the sudden entrance of a warrior, the appearance of whom caused an instantaneous emotion of surprise in the minds of the Frenchmen.
The stranger was fair enough to be a Frenchman himself. His complexion was wonderfully in contrast with that of the other chiefs, and there was a something in his bearing and carriage, and the expression of his countenance, which irresistibly impressed De Gourgues with the conviction that he was gazing upon one of his own countrymen. The features of the stranger were smooth as well as fair, and in this, indeed, he rather resembled the race of red than of white men. But he was evidently very young, yet of a grave, saturnine cast of face, such as would denote equally middle age and much experience, and yet was evidently the result of temperament. His hair, the portion that was seen, was short, as if kept carefully clipped; but he wore around his brows several thick folds of crimson cotton, in fashion not greatly unlike that of the Turk. There were many of the chiefs who wore a similar head-dress, though whence the manufacture came, our Frenchmen had no way to determine. A cotton shirt, with a falling cape and fringe reaching below to his knees, belted about the waist with a strip of crimson, like that which bound his head, formed the chief items of his costume. Like the warriors generally, he wore well-tanned buckskin leggings, terminating in moccasins of the same material. He carried a lance in his grasp, while a light macana was suspended from his shoulders.
“Holata Cara!” said Satouriova, as if introducing the stranger to the Frenchmen, the moment that he appeared, and the young chief was motioned to a seat. In a whisper to the trumpeter, Gourgues asked if he knew anything about this warrior; but the trumpeter looked bewildered.
“Such a chief was not known to us,” said he, “in the time of Laudonniere.”
“He looks for all the world like a Frenchman,” murmured Gourgues.
“He reminds me,” continued the trumpeter, “of a face that I have seen and know, Monsieur; but, I cannot say. If that turban were off now, and the paint. This is the first time I have ever heard the name. But the boy, Pierre, may know him.”
Gourgues whispered the boy:
“Who is this chief? Have you ever seen him before? Do you know him?”
“No, Monsieur; I have never seen him. I have heard of him. He is the adopted son of the Great Chief, adopted from another tribe, I hear. But he is as white as I am, almost, and looks a little like a Frenchman. I can’t say, Monsieur, but I could swear I knew the face. I have seen one very much like it, I think, among our own people.”
“Who?”
“I can’t say, Monsieur, I can’t; and the more I look, the more I am uncertain.”
Something more was said in an equally unsatisfactory manner, and, in the meantime, the stranger took his seat in the assembly without seeming concern. He betrayed no curiosity when his eye rested upon the Frenchmen. When it was agreed that two persons should be sent, one of the French and one of the red chiefs to make a reconnaissance of the Spanish fortress, he rose quietly, looked towards Satouriova, and, striking his breast slightly, with his right hand, simply repeated his own name,—
“Holata Cara!”
“It is well,” said the chief, with an approving smile; and Holata Cara, on the part of the Indians, and Monsieur d’Estampes, a gentleman of Comminges, on the part of the Frenchmen, were sent to explore the country under the control of the Spanish usurpers. Holata Cara immediately disappeared from the assembly. A few moments after he was buried in the deepest of the neighboring thickets, while a beautiful young savage—a female—who might have been a princess, and wore, like one, a fillet about her brow, and carried herself loftily as became a queen, stood beside him, with her hand resting upon his shoulder, and her eye looking tenderly up into his; while she said, in her own language:
“I will follow you, but not to be seen; and our people shall be nigh to watch, lest there be danger from the Spaniard.”
The chief smiled, as if, in the solicitous speech to which he listened, he detected some sweet deceit; but he said nothing but words of parting, and these were kind and affectionate. It was not long before Holata Cara joined Monsieur d’Estampes, the boy Pierre de Bré being sent along with them, on the reconnaissance which the allies had agreed was to be made. In the meantime, the better to assure Gourgues of the safety of D’Estampes, Satouriova gave his son and the best beloved of all his wives, into the custody of the French as hostages, and they were immediately conveyed to the safe-keeping of the ships.
The reconnaissance was completed. The report of Holata Cara and D’Estampes showed that the Spanish fortress of San Matheo, formerly La Caroline, was in good order, and with a strong garrison. Two other forts which the Spaniards had raised in the neighborhood, commanding both sides of the river, and nearer to its mouth, were also surveyed, and were found to be well manned and in proper condition for defence. In these three forts, the garrison was found to consist of four hundred soldiers, unequally distributed, but with a force in each sufficient for the post. Thus advised, the allies proceeded severally to array their troops for the business of assault. But, before marching, a solemn festival was appointed on the banks of the Salina Cani—by the French called the Somme—which was the place appointed for the rendezvous. Here the red-men drank copious draughts of their cassine, or apalachine, a bitter but favorite beverage, the reported nature of which is that it takes away all hunger and thirst for the space of twenty-four hours, from those that employ it. Though long used to all sorts of trial and endurance, Gourgues found it not so easy to undergo this draught. Still, he made such a show of drinking, as to satisfy his confederates; and this done, the allied chiefs, lifting hands and eyes, made solemn oath of their fidelity in the sight of heaven. The march was then begun, the red-men leading the way, and moving, in desultory manner, through the woods, Holata Cara at their head; while, pursuing another route, but under good guidance, and keeping his force compactly together, our chevalier conducted his Frenchmen to the same point of destination. This was the river Caraba, or Salinacani, named by Ribault the Somme, which was at length reached, but not without great difficulty, the streams being overflowed by frequent and severe rains, and the marshy and low tracts all under water. Food was wanting also to our Frenchmen, the bark appointed to follow them with provisions, under Monsieur Bourdelois not having arrived.
They were now but two leagues distant from the two smaller forts which the Spaniards had established and fortified, in addition to that of La Caroline, on the banks of the May, or, as they had newly christened it, the San Matheo. While bewildered with doubts as to the manner of reaching these forts—the waters everywhere between being swollen almost beyond the possibility of passage—the red-men were consulted, and the chief, Helicopilé, was chosen to guide our Frenchmen by a more easy and less obvious route. Making a circuit through the woods, the whole party at length reached a point where they could behold one of the forts; but a deep creek lay between, the water of which rose above their waists. Gourgues, however, now that his object was in sight, was not to be discouraged by inferior obstacles; and, giving instructions to his people to fasten their powder flasks to their morions and to carry their swords and their calivers in their hands above their heads, he effected the passage at a point which enabled them to cover themselves from sight of the Spaniards by a thick tract of forest which lay between the fort and the river. It was sore fording for our Frenchmen; for the bed of the creek was paved with great oysters, the shells of which inflicted sharp wounds upon their legs and feet; and many of them lost their shoes in the passage. As soon as they had crossed, they prepared themselves for the assault. Up to this moment, so well had the red-men guarded all the passages, and so rapid had been their march, with that of Gourgues and his party, that the Spaniards had no notion that there were any Frenchmen in the country. Still, they were on the alert; and so active did they show themselves, in and about the fort, that our chevalier feared that his approach had been discovered.
But no time was to be lost. Giving twenty arquebusiers to his Lieutenant Casenove, and half that number of mariners, armed with pots and balls of wild fire, designed to burn the gate of the fort, he took a like force under his own command, with the view to making simultaneous assaults in opposite quarters. The two parties were scarcely in motion, before Gourgues found the chief Holata Cara at his side, followed by a small party of the red-men; the rest had been carefully concealed in the woods, in order to pursue the combat after their primitive fashion. Holata Cara was armed only with a long spear, which he bore with great dexterity, and a macana which now hung by his side, a flattened club, the two edges of which were fitted with the teeth of the shark, or with great flints, ground down to the sharpness of a knife. This was his substitute for a sword, and was a weapon capable of inflicting the most terrible wounds. The spear which he carried was headed also with a massive dart of flint, curiously and finely set in the wood, and exhibiting a rare instance of Indian ingenuity, in its excellence as a weapon of offence, and its rare and elaborate ornament. Gourgues examined it with much interest. The instrument was antique. It might have been in use an hundred years or more. The heavy but elastic wood, almost blackened by age and oil, was polished like a mirror by repeated friction. The grasp was carved with curious ability, and exhibited the wings of birds with eyes wrought among the feathers, in the sockets of which great pearls were set, the carving of the feathers forming a bushy brow above, and a shield all about them, so that, grasp the weapon as you would, the pearls were secure from injury. Gourgues examined the owner of the spear with as much curiosity as he did the weapon. But without satisfaction. The features of the other were immoveable. But the signals being all made, Holata Cara waved his hand with some impatience to the fort, and Gourgues had no leisure to ask the questions which that moment arose in his mind.
“It was,” says the venerable chronicle, “the Sunday eve next after Easter-day, April, 1568,” when the signal for the assault was given. Gourgues made a brief speech to his followers before they began the attack, recounting the cruel treachery and the bloody deeds of the Spaniards done upon their brethren at La Caroline and Matanzas Bay. Holata Cara, resting with his spear head thrust in the earth, listened in silence to this speech. The moment it was ended, he led the way for the rest, from the thicket which concealed them. As soon as the two parties had emerged from cover, they were descried by the watchful Spaniards.
“To arms! to arms!” was the cry of their sentinels. “To arms! these be Frenchmen!”
To the war-cry of “Castile” and “Santiago!” that of “France!” and “Saint-Denis for France,” was cheerily sent up by the assailants; and it was observed that no shout was louder or clearer than that of Holata Cara, as he hurried forward.
When the assailants were within two hundred paces of the fort, the artillery of the garrison opened upon them from a culverin taken at La Caroline, which the Spaniards succeeded in discharging twice, with some effect, while the Frenchmen were approaching. A third time was this piece about to be turned upon the assailants, when Holata Cara, rushing forwards planted his spear in the ground, and swinging from it, with a mighty spring, succeeded, at a bound, in reaching the platform. The gunner was blowing his match, and about to apply it to the piece, when the spear of the Indian chief was driven clean through his body, and the next moment the slain man was thrust headlong down into the fort. Stung by this noble example, Gourgues hurried forward, and the assault being made successfully on the opposite side at the same instant, the Spaniards fled from the defences. A considerable slaughter ensued within, when they rushed desperately from the enclosure.
But they were encountered on every side. Escape was vain. Of the whole garrison, consisting of threescore men, all were slain, with the exception of fifteen, who were reserved for a more deliberate punishment.
Meanwhile the fortress on the opposite side of the river opened upon the assailants, and was answered by the four pieces which had been found within the captured place. The Frenchmen were more annoyed than injured by this distant cannonade, and immediately prepared to cross the river for the conquest of this new enemy. Fortunately, the patache, bringing their supplies, had ascended the stream, and, under cover from the guns of the Spaniard, lay in waiting just below. Gourgues, with fourscore soldiers, crossed the stream in her; the Indians not waiting for this slow conveyance, but swimming the river, carrying their bows and arrows with one hand above their heads.
The Frenchmen at once threw themselves into the woods which covered the space between this second fort and La Caroline, the latter being only a league distant. The Spaniards, apprised of the movement of the patache, beholding shore and forest lined with the multitudes of red-men, and hearing their frightful cries on every hand, were seized with an irresistible panic, and, in an evil moment abandoned their stronghold, in the hope of making their way through the woods, to the greater fortress of La Caroline. But they were too late in the attempt. The woods were occupied by enemies. Charged by the advancing Frenchmen, they rushed into the arms of the savages, and, with the exception of another fifteen, were all butchered as they fought or fled. Holata Cara was again found the foremost, and the most terrible agent in this work of vengeance.
The Chevalier de Gourgues now proposed temporarily to rest from his labors, and give himself a reasonable time before attempting the superior fortress of La Caroline, in ascertaining its strength, and the difficulties in the way of its capture. The captives taken at the second fort were transferred to the first, and set apart with their comrades for future judgment. From one of these he learned that the garrison of La Caroline consisted of near three hundred men, under command of a brave and efficient governor. His prisoners he closely examined for information. Having ascertained the height of the platform, the extent of the fortifications, and the nature of the approaches, he prepared scaling ladders, and made all the necessary provisions for a regular assault. The Indians, meanwhile, had been ordered to environ the fortress, and so to cover the whole face of the country, as to make it impossible that the garrison should obtain help, convey intelligence of their situation to their friends in St. Augustine, or escape from the beleagured station.
While these preparations were in progress, the Spanish governor at La Caroline, now fully apprised of his danger, and of the capture of the two smaller forts, sent out one of his most trusty scouts, disguised as an Indian, to spy out the condition of the French, their strength and objects. But Holata Cara, who had taken charge of the forces of the red-men, had too well occupied all the passages to suffer this excellent design to prove successful. He made the scout a prisoner, and readily saw through all his disguises. Thus detected, the Spaniard revealed all that he knew of the strength and resources of the garrison. He described them as in very great panic, having been assured that the French numbered no less than two thousand men. Gourgues determined to assail them in the moment of their greatest alarm, and before they should recover from it, or be undeceived with regard to his strength. The red-men were counselled to maintain their ambush in the thickets skirting the river on both sides, and leaving his standard-bearer and a captain with fifteen chosen men in charge of the captured forts and prisoners, Gourgues set forth on his third adventure. He took with him the Spanish scout and another captive Spaniard, a sergeant, as guides, fast fettered, and duly warned that any attempt at deception, or escape, would only bring down instant and condign punishment upon their heads. His ensign, Monsieur de Mesmes, with twenty arquebusiers, was left to guard the mouth of the river, and, with the red-men covering the face of the country, and provided with all the implements necessary to storm the defences, Gourgues began his march against La Caroline.
It was late in the day when the little band set forth, and evening began to approach as they drew within sight of the fortress. The Don in command at La Caroline was vigilant enough, and soon espied the advancing columns. His cannon and his culverins, commanding the river thoroughly, began to play with great spirit upon our Frenchmen, who were compelled to cover themselves in the woods, taking shelter behind a slight eminence within sight of the fortress. This wood afforded them sufficient cover for their approaches almost to the foot of the fortress—the precautions of the Spaniard not having extended to the removal of the forest growth by which the place was surrounded, and by help of which the designs of an enemy could be so much facilitated. It was under the shelter of this very wood, and by this very route—so Gourgues learned from his prisoners—that the Spaniards had successfully surprised and assaulted the fortress two years before.
Here, then, our chevalier determined to lie perdu until the next morning, the hour being too late and the enemy too watchful, at that moment, to attempt anything. Besides, Gourgues desired a little time to see how the land lay, and how his approaches should be made. On that side of the fortress which fronted the hill, behind which our Frenchmen harbored, he discovered that the trench seemed to be insufficiently flanked for the defence of the curtains.
While meditating in what way to take advantage of this weakness, he was agreeably surprised by the commission of an error, on the part of the garrison, which materially abridged his difficulties. The Spanish governor, either with a nervous anxiety to anticipate events, or with a fool-hardiness which fancied that they might be controlled by a wholesome audacity, ordered a sortié; and Gourgues with delight beheld a detachment of threescore soldiers, deliberately passing the trenches and marching steadily into the very jaws of ruin.
Holata Cara, as if aware by instinct, was at once at the side of our chevalier, with his spear pointing to the fated detachment. In a moment, the warrior sped with the commands of Gourgues, to his lieutenant, Cazenove, who, with twenty arquebusiers, covered by the wood, contrived to throw himself between the fortress and the advancing party, cutting off all their chances of escape. Then it was that, with wild cries of “France! France!” the chevalier rose from his place of hiding, with all his band, and rushed out upon his prey, reserving his fire until sufficiently near to render every shot certain. The Spaniards recoiled from the assault; but, as they fled, were encountered in the rear by the squad under Cazenove. The battle cry of the French, resounding at once in front and rear, completed their panic, and they offered but a feeble resistance to enemies who neither asked nor offered quarter. It was a massacre rather than a fight; and still, as the French paused in the work of death, a shrill death-cry in their midst aroused them anew, and they could behold the lithe form of the red chief, Holata Cara, speeding from foe to foe, with his macana only, smiting with fearful edge—a single stroke at each several victim, followed ever by the agonizing yell of death! Not a Spaniard escaped of all that passed through the trenches on that miserable sortié!
Terrified by this disaster, so sudden and so complete, the garrison were no longer capable of defence. They no longer hearkened to the commands or the encouragements of their governor. They left, or leaped, the walls; they threw wide the gates, and rushed wildly into the neighboring thickets, in the vain hope to find security in their dark recesses, and under cover of the night. But they knew not well how the woods were occupied. At once a torrent of yells, of torture and of triumph, startled the echoes on every side. The swift arrow, the sharp javelin, the long spear, the stone hatchet, each found an unresisting victim; and the miserable fugitives, maddened with terror, darted back upon the fortress, which was already in the possession of the French. They had seized the opportunity, and in the moment when the insubordinate garrison threw wide the gates, and leaped blindly from the parapets, they had swiftly occupied their places. The fugitive Spaniards, recoiling from the savages, only changed one form of death for another. They suffered on all hands—were mercilessly shot down as they fled, or stabbed as they surrendered; those only excepted who were chosen to expiate, more solemnly and terribly, the great crime of which they had been guilty!