In Search of Mademoiselle

by George Gibbs

But the storm showed no sign of abating. Before noon the wind increased to such a force that the vessels could wear but their very lightest canvas; and heavy gusts of wind came now and then, in which those sails cracked and strained, the ship groaning like a thing in pain.

Bourdelais stood upon the poop glancing first at the slatting canvas and then at the Spanish vessels within the harbor, growing every moment more indistinct in the wrack and mist under our lee. De Brésac, who had stood fingering his sword-hilt impatiently, awaiting the beginning of the battle, had railed so openly at the Admiral’s decision to put to sea, that he had been sent below, like a sulky boy, to recover his usual tepor. Salvation Smith had stopped reading to Job Goddard from the “Martyrs,”—his accustomed relish before going into battle—and sat moody and dispirited in the lee of the barge in the waist, while his companion swore softly to himself.

I doubted not, it was a wise decision to put to sea, but to me it seemed a bitter thing to be forced to turn aside from a battle which meant so much to us all. If Ribault himself had any doubts as to his decision, he did not show them; for he paced up and down the quarter-deck, his calm demeanor setting a worthy example in forbearance to the younger and less moderate among us, who were anxious to be up and at our enemies, and found small pleasure in a sailing drill upon the ocean when other and more troublous business might have been doing.

The next day the wind went down. From green the sea had turned to gray. But the waves did not break in masses of foam. They boiled along, churning and seething as though disturbed by some mighty current beneath. Only the crest, in a wall of amber thin as parchment, was tossed up to curl and break in a jet of spray; and broken lines of gray swayed and rolled athwart the trough where the foam had been. The clouds from brown had turned to a heavy blue, the color of a Spanish blade. They hung low and menacing, while great fingers of them curled and twisted like furies, or shot out in long lines here and there to be torn to pieces and carried in shreds down to leeward.

For six days this weather continued. There was no great danger to the ships so long as it blew no harder. The Admiral was running around this mounthsoun, as he called it, which came up from the south. Could we but go through it, all danger would be past; but in this sea it would have been destruction to some of his fleet to have hazarded an approach to San Augustin again. We could get no sight of clear sky; but by the drift and speed I made it that we had gone three hundred leagues or so to the north and into the Mares’ sea, as it has come to be called.

Here we saw no longer the great rollers of the coast, for the wind now blew fitfully from the east and the waves ran first in one way and then in another. The sky lightened a little and the Admiral, thinking the storm had gone out to sea, shifted his helm and put about again.

The Sieur de la Notte, who was chafing under this delay, could hardly restrain his great anxiety. The Spaniards had seen us struggling in the face of the storm and might conceive the bold project to attack Fort Caroline before the ships returned. The very thought of it filled my heart with dread, and I could not forbear speaking of it to Ribault.

That was the only time I had ever seen him angry. He flashed upon me, his features distorted with rage. He had seized a pin from the rail and I thought for the moment he would strike me with it.

“You Anglais are always meddling,” he shouted. “What have you to do with this command?”