The warriors were mustered, the dances were danced, and the songs were sung. Then the wild cohort took up its march. The wilderness through which they passed holds its distinctive features to this day,—the shady desert of the pine-barrens, where many a wanderer has miserably died, with haggard eye seeking in vain for clue or guidance in the pitiless, inexorable monotony. Yet the waste has its oases, the "hummocks," where the live-oaks are hung with long festoons of grape-vines,—where the air is sweet with woodland odors, and vocal with the song of birds. Then the deep cypress-swamp, where dark trunks rise like the columns of some vast sepulchre. Above, the impervious canopy of leaves; beneath, a black and root-encumbered slough. Perpetual moisture trickles down the clammy bark, while trunk and limb, distorted with strange shapes of vegetable disease, wear in the gloom a semblance grotesque and startling. Lifeless forms lean propped in wild disorder against the living, and from every rugged stem and lank limb outstretched hangs the dark drapery of the Spanish moss. The swamp is veiled in mourning. No breath, no voice. A deathly stillness, till the plunge of the alligator, lashing the waters of the black lagoon, resounds with hollow echo through the tomb-like solitude.
Next, the broad sunlight and the wide savanna. Wading breast-deep in grass, they view the wavy sea of verdure, with headland and cape and far-reaching promontory, with distant coasts, hazy and dim, havens and shadowed coves, islands of the magnolia and the palm, high, impending shores of the mulberry and the elm, the ash, hickory, and maple. Here the rich gordonia, never out of bloom, sends down its thirsty roots to drink at the stealing brook. Here the halesia hangs out its silvery bells, the purple clusters of the wistaria droop from the supporting bough, and the coral blossoms of the erythryna glow in the shade beneath. From tufted masses of sword-like leaves shoot up the tall spires of the yucca, heavy with pendent flowers, of pallid hue, like the moon, and from the grass gleams the blue eye of the starry ixia.
Through forest, swamp, savanna, the valiant Frenchmen held their way. At first, Outina's Indians kept always in advance; but when they reached the hostile district, the modest warriors fell to the rear, resigning the post of honor to their French allies.
An open country; a rude cultivation; the tall palisades of an Indian town. Their approach was seen, and the warriors of Potanou, nowise daunted, came swarming forth to meet them. But the sight of the bearded strangers, the flash and report of the fire-arms, the fall of their foremost chief, shot through the brain with the bullet of Arlac, filled them with consternation, and they fled headlong within their defences. The men of Thimagoa ran screeching in pursuit. Pell-mell, all entered the town together. Slaughter; pillage; flame. The work was done, and the band returned triumphant.
CHAPTER II.
In the little world of Fort Caroline, a miniature France, cliques and parties, conspiracy and sedition, were fast stirring into life. Hopes had been dashed; wild expectations had come to nought. The adventurers had found, not conquest and gold, but a dull exile in a petty fort by a hot and sickly river, with hard labor, ill fare, prospective famine, and nothing to break the weary sameness but some passing canoe or floating alligator. Gathered in knots, they nursed each other's wrath, and inveighed against the commandant.
Why are we put on half-rations, when he told us that provision should be made for a full year? Where are the reinforcements and supplies that he said should follow us from France? Why is he always closeted with Ottigny, Arlac, and this and that favorite, when we, men of blood as good as theirs, cannot gain his ear for a moment? And why has he sent La Roche Ferrière to make his fortune among the Indians, while we are kept here, digging at the works?
Of La Roche Ferrière and his adventures, more hereafter. The young nobles, of whom there were many, were volunteers, who had paid their own expenses, in expectation of a golden harvest, and they chafed in impatience and disgust. The religious element in the colony—unlike the former Huguenot emigration to Brazil—was evidently subordinate. The adventurers thought more of their fortunes than of their faith; yet there were not a few earnest enough in the doctrine of Geneva to complain loudly and bitterly that no ministers had been sent with them. The burden of all grievances was thrown upon Laudonnière, whose greatest errors seem to have arisen from weakness and a lack of judgment,—fatal defects in his position.
The growing discontent was brought to a partial head by one Roquette, who gave out that by magic he had discovered a mine of gold and silver, high up the river, which would give each of them a share of ten thousand crowns, besides fifteen hundred thousand for the king. But for Laudonnière, he said, their fortunes would all be made. He found an ally in a gentleman named Genre, one of Laudonnière's confidants, who, still professing fast adherence to the interests of the latter, is charged by him with plotting against his life. Many of the soldiers were in the conspiracy. They made a flag of an old shirt, which they carried with them to the rampart when they went to their work, at the same time wearing their arms, and watching an opportunity to kill the commandant. About this time, overheating himself, he fell ill, and was confined to his quarters. On this, Genre made advances to the apothecary, urging him to put arsenic into his medicines; but the apothecary shrugged his shoulders. They next devised a scheme to blow him up, by hiding a keg of gunpowder under his bed; but here, too, they failed. Hints of Genre's machinations reaching the ears of Laudonnière, the culprit fled to the woods, whence he wrote repentant letters, with full confession, to his commander.
Two of the ships meanwhile returned to France,—the third, the Breton, remaining at anchor opposite the fort. The malecontents took the opportunity to send home charges against Laudonnière of peculation, favoritism, and tyranny.