The Seamew sailed more than three weeks behind le Dauphin, armed with letters of marque from the King commissioning her to prey upon Spanish commerce in southern seas, and especially to take part in any expedition against Havana or Pensacola.
Our voyage wore on drearily enough to me, almost without incident. After four weeks of sky and sea we rounded the southernmost cape of Florida and turned into the Mexican Gulf. I grew more and more impatient and full of dread. Le Dauphin had twenty-three days the start of our faster vessel, and Biloxi was probably at that moment in a fever of warlike preparation. It was just possible, too, that the Spaniards had not yet been informed of the war, and nothing had been so far done by them.
Cruising by Pensacola harbor, just outside the Isle de Santa Rosa, a pine-grown stretch of narrow sand which for twenty-five leagues protects that coast, Levasseur called me to him.
"Do you know, my lad, what vessels those are at anchor in the harbor?"
Two of them I recognized as I would my own tent, two French men-of-war which Bienville had long been expecting from France. The rest were Spaniards, full-rigged, four ships, and six gunboats. Levasseur put the Seamew boldly about and entered the harbor. He signaled the Frenchmen, lowered a boat, and sent his lieutenant aboard the flagship with credentials and a letter signifying his readiness to engage in any enterprise.
From Admiral Champmeslin, in command of the squadron, he learned that Bienville and Serigny, combined with the Choctaws, had invested Pensacola by land, and on the morrow a simultaneous attack by land and sea would be made. The Spanish forces consisted of four ships, six gunboats, a strong fort on Santa Rosa Island, and the works at Pensacola, the strength of whose garrison was unknown.
That night on board the Seamew was spent in busy preparation and in rest. I alone was unemployed, my awkwardness with ropes and spars forbade it. I sat moodily upon a gun at the port, and fixing my eyes on shore vainly endeavored to make out what the French and Choctaws were doing there. To the left were the meager camp fires of the Indians; further up the hills a more generous blazing line marked the French position.
Gradually a low wavering sound separated itself from the other noises of the night, coming faint but clear upon the light land breeze, the first quivering notes of a Choctaw war chant. How familiar it was. Was I mistaken? I listened more intently. No. It was in very truth the voice of Tuskahoma, my old friend on many marches.
I cared nothing for the Seamew or her crew, and determined to seek my old friends to fight out the day with them.
What little thought I gave it justified the deed. My position as an officer of the King would palliate deserting the ship which had brought me over.