In Search of Mademoiselle

by George Gibbs

The tide had turned; but before dawn we had come well within the sound of the surf and pulled into a secluded river or creek on the north bank, before the sun had come out of the sea. We ate a portion of dried venison apiece, and concealing the canoe among the branches, cut into the thicket, Goddard carrying a large packet of tobacco which the Paracousi had given him. By marching steadily all the morning along the line of this river, we came by noon to another body of water as large as the River of May. Here we halted again, and to our surprise and great joy discovered a small vessel riding securely at anchor, and flying the flag of France!

There is no need to dwell at length upon the events which followed. The vessel was the Epervier, Captain Gillonne, of the fleet of poor Ribault. After much signaling a boat was lowered from her side and many men armed with arquebus and pike dropped down into her. They approached within thirty yards of the shore, when we proved to them by word of mouth that we were no Spaniards but men of their own company. Then they brought their boat in upon the beach and welcomed us with great rejoicing. The Epervier had been upon the sea for many weeks, and blown to the southward, had ridden through the fury of the storm which had sent the other vessels upon the coast. The Frenchmen had seen the wrecks upon the beach, but no man save a few soldiers in armor carrying a standard of Spain. They had come to the River of May only to find our Fort in the hands of the enemy and had much to do to escape to the open sea again, out of range of the Spanish ordnance. This gallant Gillonne, watchful against the Spaniards, remained warily at anchor, hoping by this delay to save any Frenchman who might have escaped, although he thus placed himself in direst jeopardy of capture by the Spanish fleet.

It seemed, then, that most of our physical sufferings were to end. We went aboard the “great canoe” as the Paracousi called it, Captain Gillonne setting red wine before these Indians, which indeed they drank with as much avidity as Job Goddard himself. They walked about the vessel looking up at the rigging, speaking among themselves, though they made no outward sign of curiosity, surprise or any other emotion. They are a strange people, these Caribs; haughty, and solitary as the great pines which tower in their wild forests. The good Paracousi was given many gifts to carry back to his people. He bore messages of good will from the French to the great Satouriona, and we three who had been his guests shook him by the hand and smoked a pipe of peace, which Goddard brought forth from beneath his doublet. The chief and his warriors departed to the shore as gravely and silently as they had come.

The people of the Epervier all sickened for the sight of France; and the provisions being low, it was at last decided to set sail. There was small chance of finding other refugees and the danger of capture was imminent, depending only upon discovery. And so we hoisted our anchor in the morning and with a brisk wind sailed forth from that harbor into the open sea, seeing no Spanish ships and making a clear run to the eastward out of land-sight by evening. Of the trials of that voyage I will not speak, since the matter is one having no importance in the description of these events. It is enough that after many weeks of storm and stress, privation and suffering, we had a fight with a Spanish vessel, but being weak-handed were glad enough to get secure away. A sickness broke out among our men, but we landed at last, worn by adversity, at Rochelle in France.

As before written, I make no attempt to justify my actions in the happenings which followed. Thrust by ill-fortune out of employment, I had made this quarrel my own. And the love which had changed me for the nonce from man to god had now turned me devil. A new glory had shone into my life for a short hour and made me all resplendent with its gold—but the light had gone out and the darkness hung like a pall about my soul. I could not reason but with relation to the dark thoughts which filled my mind. I thirsted for vengeance upon Menendez and Diego de Baçan, and there was no slaking. Nor could I understand that I, a quiet-tempered English lad, had turned adventurer like a Moor or a Spaniard. It was the tame stable-dog made wolfish by the sight of blood. I have said much of the cruelty of the Spaniards, but as I look back upon those dreadful times and the more dreadful ones which followed, I know that I was as mad as the others and that we were no instruments of God—as, to ease our consciences, we said we were,—but only the willing tools of our own passions.

Truly the Chevalier de Brésac was animated by much the same spirit as myself. For upon French soil he proved himself a man of resource. The roads were blocked with snow, but friends in Rochelle made our journey to Paris possible; and in the middle of the month of December we rode into that city by the Porte St. Marcel. De Brésac was a fine horseman and I had been bred to ride long before I took to a sailor’s life, but it was no tranquil riding for Job Goddard. The beasts were of the quietest, but even so he found it no easy matter to keep upright in the saddle, and was three times tossed into the snow drifts, from which he emerged swearing and vowing that he would ride no more.

“’Tis worse than the weather top-gallant yardarm in a cross-chop, Master Sydney,” he would say, “an’ never a lift or handful o’ sail to hang on by. For d’ye see, sir, this craft will mind no helm but the fore sheets, and ’tis mighty poor sailin’ in a squall.” He bore so rueful a countenance that we laughed at him in spite of ourselves, and by dint of much persuading and lifting he was got each time again in the saddle.

Once within the gates of Paris we rode straightway to the house of M. Henri de Teligny, the uncle of my good friend. He was a fine, bristly, red-visaged, gallant figure of a man; an old soldier, a man of much power and, as we soon learned, with a leaning to the cause of the Huguenots. He welcomed the Chevalier with every mark of affection, and after bidding us to the hospitality of his house, caused refreshments to be brought and plied his nephew with questions as to his adventures in New France. It had been the intention of De Brésac to approach him with some care and niceness upon matters of religion and to bring out an expression upon the tale before enlisting his sympathies in our cause. Therefore, he at first was guarded in his replies, using a very skilful diplomacy. But when he had at last fairly begun, the old man listened to the story of the massacres of Fort Caroline and San Augustin with undisguised horror. He had heard rumors from Spain that the French colony was destroyed. He had not entirely believed it; but, were it true, victory had been gained by honorable war and not by criminal deceit. He could not remain quiet through the telling of the real tale and strode up and down the chamber pulling at his gray mustaches and venting himself in the loudest expressions of wrath and sorrow. When the Chevalier had come to the voyage in the canoe and the discovery of the swinging bodies over which the legends had been placed, he could contain himself no longer.