“Do not answer them yet, my good fellows,” he cried, “but stoop ye, every man, and break the arrows, as many as ye can, that fall about ye.”
He had seen that the savages, having delivered a few fires, were wont to rush forward and gather up the spent shafts, which, thus recovered, afforded them an inexhaustible armory, upon which it is their custom to rely. When his assailants beheld how his men were engaged, they rushed forward with loud shouts of fury, and delivering another storm of darts, they made demonstrations of a desire for close conflict, with their stone hatchets and macanas. At this show, D’Erlach spoke to his men in subdued accents.
“Make ye still as if ye would stoop for the fallen arrows, ye of the first rank; but blow ye your matches even as ye do so, and falling upon your knees deliver then your fire; while the second rank will cover you as ye do so, and while ye charge anew your pieces.”
The command was obeyed with coolness; and, as the Indians darted forward, coming in close packed squadrons into the gorge of the avenue, the soldiers delivered their fire with great precision. Dreadful was the howl which followed it, for more than thirteen of the savages had fallen, mortally hurt, and two of their chief warriors had been made to bite the dust. Seizing the bodies of their slain and wounded comrades, the survivors immediately hurried into cover, and D’Erlach at once pushed forward with his command. But he had not advanced more than four hundred paces, when the assault was renewed, the air suddenly being darkened with the flight of bearded shafts, while the forest rang with the yells of savage fury. They were still too far for serious mischief, and were besides covered with the woods; so, giving the assailants little heed, except to observe that they came not too nigh, or too suddenly upon him, D’Erlach continued to push forward, doing as he had done before with the hostile arrows whenever they lay in the pathway. But the courage of the red-men increased as they warmed in the struggle, and they grew bolder because of the very forbearance of the Frenchmen. Besides, their forces had been increased by other bodies, each approaching in turn to the assault, so as to keep their enemies constantly busy. In parties of two or three hundred, they darted from their several ambushes, and having discharged their arrows, and met with repulse, retired rapidly to other favorite places of concealment to renew the conflict as it continued to advance. By this time, the whole body of the Frenchmen had become engaged in the fight. The force under Ottigny, following the example of that led by D’Erlach, had succeeded in pressing forward, though not without loss, while making great havoc with the red-men. These people fought, never men more bravely; and, but for the happy thought, that of destroying their arrows as fast as they fell, it is probable that the detachment had never reached La Caroline. They hovered thus about the march of the Frenchmen all the day, encouraging each other with shouts of vengeance and delight, and sending shaft upon shaft, with an aim, which, had they not been too greatly sensible of the danger of the arquebuse, to come sufficiently nigh, would have been always fatal. Yet well did the savage succeed, so long as they remained unintoxicated by their rage, in dodging the aim of the weapon. As Laudonniere writes—“All the while they had their eye and foot so quicke and readie, that as soone as ever they saw the harquebuse raised to the cheeke, so soon were they on the ground, and eftsoone to answer with their bowes, and to flie their way, if by chance they perceived that we were about to take them.”
This conflict lasted from nine o’clock in the morning until night. It only ceased when the darkness separated the combatants. Even then, but for the deficiency of their arrows, they probably would not have withdrawn from the field. It was late in the night when the Frenchmen reached their boats, weary and exhausted, their grain wrested from them, their hostages rescued, and twenty-four of their number killed and wounded. The Floridians had shown themselves warriors of equal spirit and capacity. The determined exclusion of their Paracoussi from counsels which it was feared that he would dishonor, their manly resistance to the white invaders, their scornful ridicule of their necessities, their proud defiance of their power, and the fierce and unrelenting hostility with which they had chased their adversaries, remind us irresistibly of the degradation of Montezuma by his subjects, their prolonged warfare with the Spaniards, their sleepless hostility, and that bloody struggle which first drove them over the causeways of Tenochtitlan. The inferior state and wealth of the Paracoussi, Olata Ouvae Utina, constitutes no such sufficient element of difference, as to lessen the force of the parallel between himself and people, and those of the Atzec sovereign.
[XX.]
IRACANA,
OR THE EDEN OF THE FLORIDIAN.
The disasters which befel his detachment, brought Laudonniere to his knees. He had now been humbled severely by the dispensations of Providence—punished for that disregard of the things most important to the colonization of a new country, which, in his insane pursuit of the precious metals, had marred his administration. His misfortunes reminded him of his religion.
“Seeing, therefore, mine hope frustrate on that side, I made my prayer unto God, and thanked him of his grace which he had showed unto my poore souldiers which were escaped.”
But his prayers did not detain him long. The necessities of the colony continued as pressing as ever. “Afterward, I thought upon new meanes to obtaine victuals, as well for our returne into France, as to drive out the time untill our embarking.” Those were meditations of considerable difficulty. The petty fields of the natives, never contemplated with reference to more than a temporary supply of food;—never planted with reference to providing for a whole year, were really inadequate to the wants of such a body of men, unless by grievously distressing their proprietors. The people of Olata Utina had been moved to rage in all probability, quite as much because of their grain crops, about to be torn from them, as with any feeling of indignation in consequence of the detention of their Paracoussi. In the sacks of corn which the Frenchmen bore away upon their shoulders, they beheld the sole provisions upon which, for several months, their women and children had relied to feed; and their quick imaginations were goaded to desperation, as they depicted the vivid horrors of a summer consumed in vain search after crude roots and indigestible berries, through the forests. No wonder the wild wretches fought to avert such a danger; as little may we wonder that they fought successfully. The Frenchmen, compelled to cast down their sacks of grain, to use their weapons, the red-men soon repossessed themselves of all their treasure. When Laudonniere reviewed his harrassed soldiers on their return from this expedition, “all the mill that he found among his company came but to two men’s burdens.” To attempt to recover the provisions thus wrested from them, or to revenge themselves for the indignity and injury they had undergone, were equally out of the question. The people of the Paracoussi could number their thousands; and, buried in their deep fortresses of forest, they could defy pursuit. Laudonniere was compelled to look elsewhere for the resources which should keep his company from want.