To each was given a sack of bread and a flagon of wine. Two Indians and a renegade Frenchman, called François Jean, were to guide them, and twenty Biscayan axe-men moved to the front to clear the way. Through floods of driving rain, a hoarse voice shouted the word of command, and the sullen march began.
With dire misgiving, Mendoza watched the last files as they vanished in the tempestuous forest. Two days of suspense ensued, when a messenger came back with a letter from the Adelantado announcing that he had nearly reached the French fort, and that on the morrow, September twentieth, at sunrise, he hoped to assault it. "May the Divine Majesty deign to protect us, for He knows that we have need of it," writes the scared chaplain; "the Adelantado's great zeal and courage make us hope he will succeed, but for the good of His Majesty's service he ought to be a little less ardent in pursuing his schemes."
Meanwhile the five hundred had pushed their march through forest and quagmire, through swollen streams and inundated savannas, toiling knee-deep through mud, rushes, and the rank, tangled grass,—hacking their way through thickets of the yucca or Spanish bayonet, with its clumps of dagger-like leaves, or defiling in gloomy procession through the drenched forest, to the moan, roar, and howl of the storm-racked pines. As they bent before the tempest, the water trickling from the rusty headpiece crept clammy and cold betwixt the armor and the skin; and when they made their wretched bivouac, their bed was the spongy soil, and the exhaustless clouds their tent.
The night of Wednesday, the nineteenth, found their vanguard in a deep forest of pines, less than a mile from Fort Caroline, and near the low hills which extended in its rear, and formed a continuation of St. John's Bluff. All around was one great morass. In pitchy darkness, knee-deep in weeds and water, half starved, worn with toil and lack of sleep, drenched to the skin, their provision spoiled, their ammunition wet, their spirit chilled out of them, they stood in shivering groups, cursing the enterprise and the author of it. Menendez heard an ensign say aloud to his comrades,—
"This Asturian corito, who knows no more of war on shore than an ass, has ruined us all. By ——, if my advice had been followed, he would have had his deserts the day he set out on this cursed journey!"
The Adelantado pretended not to hear.
Two hours before dawn he called his officers about him. All night, he said, he had been praying to God and the Virgin.
"Señores, what shall we resolve on? Our ammunition and provisions are gone. Our case is desperate." And he urged a bold rush on the fort.
But men and officers alike were disheartened and disgusted. They listened coldly and sullenly; many were for returning at every risk; none were in a mood for fight. Menendez put forth all his eloquence, till at length the dashed spirits of his followers were so far rekindled that they consented to follow him.
All fell on their knees in the marsh; then, rising, they formed their ranks and began to advance, guided by the renegade Frenchman, whose hands, to make sure of him, were tied behind his back. Groping and stumbling in the dark among trees, roots, and underbrush, buffeted by wind and rain, and slashed in the face by the recoiling boughs which they could not see, they soon lost their way, fell into confusion, and came to a stand, in a mood more savagely desponding than before. But soon a glimmer of returning day came to their aid, and showed them the dusky sky, and the dark columns of the surrounding pines. Menendez ordered the men forward on pain of death. They obeyed, and presently, emerging from the forest, could dimly discern the ridge of a low hill, behind which, the Frenchman told them, was the fort. Menendez, with a few officers and men, cautiously mounted to the top. Beneath lay Fort Caroline, three gunshots distant; but the rain, the imperfect light, and a cluster of intervening houses prevented his seeing clearly, and he sent two officers to reconnoitre. Descending, they met a solitary Frenchman, a straggler from the fort. They knocked him down with a sheathed sword, took him prisoner, then stabbed him in cold blood. This done, and their observations made, they returned to the top of the hill, behind which, clutching their weapons in fierce expectancy, all the gang stood waiting.