"Good-by, brother, good-by," and Anthony laughed as he waved his hand.
All this looked like playing with fire to the Sieur de Bienville. He was young; much younger than Anthony now was. But Anthony still looked so boyish and was so fresh at heart that the two had become cronies on the long voyage. With one mind they now fell to talking of the Gulf pirates. What could they do if their colony was attacked and the skull and cross-bones flaunted in their faces?
They were therefore much dismayed, upon reaching Pensacola, to find that they themselves were objects of suspicion. Their fleet was forbidden to enter the harbor. Pensacola was a Spanish colony. The officers of the port were polite but firm in their refusal. Behind them lay a Spanish war-ship even bigger than the La Françoise. The French fleet moved on.
De Bienville fumed, "They treat us as though we were robbers." But after he had followed de Graaf's significant look at the fifty guns of their escort, he demanded of his brother, "If our war-ship had been the best armed would you have gone in by force?" and when the commandant did not reply he and Anthony put their heads together and went over the whole matter again. "I think our patent allows us to use our judgment about how to hold and extend the king's dominion." And he made round eyes as who should ask, "How far can a man go in the pursuit of such duties?"
Westward then moved these French ships. Cautiously they wound among the islands which make a barrier between the rough waters of the Gulf and the northern coast. In the quieter channel thus formed they came to anchor and chose Ship's Island for their first stopping-place. Here the war-ship left them: here the colonists built the first huts to shelter themselves.
The mouth of the Mississippi must be near at hand, but they did not know exactly where. Not wishing to risk his all as the unfortunate La Salle had done, the Sieur de Iberville left most of his colonists and his ocean-going ships at the island. Taking forty-eight men in two open boats he rowed westward still further along the coast.
The sky and sea were as blue as blue could be. The beach sands and the clouds were white as spray. The live-oaks and the pines marked the mainland with lines of beauty. In the channel porpoises at play stood up on their tails to make bows of welcome inviting the Frenchmen to follow them.
It was a pleasant thing to be sweeping along through this balmy air. Anthony's barytone began to mark the time for the oarsmen with the tune he had picked up at Tortugas. The new melody seemed oddly suited to the time and place.
"Teach him the words," cried de Graaf, and the sailors who knew a little of that difficult language called English were soon singing in chorus with Anthony the words of the song once so popular:
"My name was Captain Kidd as I sailed, as I sailed,
My name was Captain Kidd as I sailed.
God's laws I did forbid and right wickedly I did
As I sailed!"