Sailing along the banks of pottery clay, Anthony measured out his bowl of corn and wondered if he could make it do for the Chickasaw and himself. As he sped under drive of wind and push of oar he glimpsed at intervals those great heaps of empty oyster-shells, the kitchen-middens, which proved that somebody in far-away days had feasted long and well on these now starving shores. It was not so very far by way of the coast to Pensacola Bay, and in good time he put into the harbor and asked for the governor of the post, one Don Francisco Martin. He was taken to an officer of the fort, and this is what was said:
"I am Anthony Auguelle, the Picard du Gay, representing the French of Louisiana in a message to your governor."
"You are a companion of the buccaneer pilot Lawrence de Graaf. I saw you both on the Badine. You are assigned to a dungeon on bread and water."
"In the name of France I demand an audience."
"In the name of Spain I will recommend you to the Don Martin when he has nothing else to notice."
A prison is a dreadful thing; a Spanish dungeon the worst of all forms of confinement. The cruelties of the Inquisition which made such underground holes possible still sicken the thoughts of a civilized world. But Anthony was so spent with weariness that he ate his plain bread greedily—it was the first wheat bread he had tasted for months—and gulped the water gratefully. The darkness was a relief to his sand-dazzled eyes and the cold stones felt good to a sun-blistered back. He slept around the clock and clambered the ladder from his cell on the point of a bayonet at the bidding of the officer. He was in good spirits. The only really bad thing about a dungeon is to have to stay in it.
The Don Francisco Martin thought it a good plan, whenever possible, to give his rivals of France and England a taste of his dungeon. But life was so dull at the outpost of Pensacola and his curiosity about a French message was so great that he granted an audience in the courtyard on this second day.
"You are lately come from Paris," said the don, noting the cut of Anthony's fine coat. "Before we proceed to business we will entertain ourselves like gentlemen. I'm sure it will give you pleasure to show us the newest feints in fencing. Luckily I have three swordsmen at hand to prove your skill," and he nodded to his gaoler, who picked up one of those immense brass keys which the Spaniards used with such gruesome effect, and went rattling down a shell-paved corridor.
Anthony looked at the smiling, whiskered don and he felt like a mouse under a tom-cat's claws. He viewed the garrison of rowdies crowding up to see a fight, and at the hot, empty sky, with narrowed eyes, as one who expects his only help from heaven.
Imagine his astonishment when the gaoler came clanking back with de Graaf a very shadow of himself, a toothless buccaneer much the worse for imprisonment, and a big Spaniard all gone to nerves.