“What is it that ye fear, my children?” continued Melendez.
Then some among them cried out—“What madness is it that we hear? Shall we, thus enfeebled as we are, with our great ships speeding to Hispaniola, here, left as we are on the wild shores of the savage, not yet entrenched, shall we divide our strength, in the hope to conquer La Caroline, leaving to the heretic Ribault to fall upon our camp when we depart, to pursue us as we tread the great forests of the Floridian, and to destroy us between the power which he brings and that which awaits us at La Caroline?”
“Oh! my brethren! would ye could see with my vision! Ribault will not trouble our camp, neither will he pursue us in our absence. He speeds before the terrors of the tempest. He flies from the destruction which will scarcely suffer him to escape. A voice cries to me that he already perishes beneath the engulphing waters of the Mexican sea; or is cast upon the bleak and treacherous shores and islands which guard the domain of the Floridian. Even if he should escape these dangers, weeks must pass before he can return to these waters of Selooe, the heathen empire of which we have consecrated with the name and confided to the holy keeping of the blessed St. Augustine! This tempest is no summer gale, subsiding as rapidly as it begins. It will rage thus for many days. In that time, encouraged by the Lord, we shall pass the forest wastes that lie between us and La Caroline. With five hundred men, and a host of these red warriors, we shall penetrate in less than four days to the fortress of the heretics—and while they dream that they sleep securely under the shadows of the tempest, we shall rush upon their slumbers, and give them to sleep eternally. My valiant comrades, this is the resolution which I have taken; but I would hear your counsel. I would not that ye should not cheerfully adopt the resolve which is assuredly a dictate from Heaven itself. For, if we destroy not these heretics, they will destroy us. If we cut off the people of La Caroline ere Ribault shall return, his fortress is ours, the cannon of which we shall turn upon him. It is a war a l’outrance between us. They will give us no quarter: they shall have none. This tempest gives us the assurance that we shall have no danger from Ribault, if we seize the precious moments for our enterprise, when he is vainly striving with the tempests of the deep, and vainly striving against the winds that bear him away hourly still farther from the scene of our achievements.”
We need not pursue the deliberations of the Spanish council. It is enough if we report the result. In the speeches of Melendez, already made, we see the full force of his argument, which was sound and sensible, and could only be opposed by the fears of those who sought to avoid exposure, who dreaded the elements, the unknown in their condition, and who shrunk from enterprises which promised nothing but hard blows, and which tasked their hardihood beyond all their past experience in war. There were arguments and pleas put in by the over-cautious and the timid, to all of which the Adelantado listened patiently, but to all of which he opposed his arguments, based at once upon the obvious policy natural to their circumstances, and to the equally obvious requisitions of the Deity, as shown by an interposition in their favor, which they were all prepared to acknowledge as fervently as Melendez. His quiet but inflexible will prevailed; the council gradually became of his mind. The unsatisfied were at least silenced, while those whom he convinced were clamorous in their plaudits of a scheme which they ascribed, as Melendez did himself, to the immediate revelation of Heaven.
“I thank you, noble gentlemen,” were the words of the Adelantado, as they separated for the night. “That our opinions so well correspond increases my confidence in our plan. Not that I had doubts before. I had thy assurance, oh! Lord! that this adventure had thy heavenly sanction. In te Domine speravi,—let us never be confounded! And now, my comrades, let us separate. With the dawn, though the storm rages still, as I hope and believe it will, we must prepare for this enterprise. We shall choose five hundred of our best soldiers, carry with us provisions for eight days, and in that time our work will be done. Our force will be divided into six companies, each with its flag and captain, and a select body of pioneers, armed with axes, shall be sent before to open a pathway through the forest. That we have no guide is a misfortune; but God will provide so that we fail not. Fortunately we know in what quarter lies La Caroline—the distance is known also, and we shall not go wide, if we are only resolved to seek and to destroy the heretics with firm and valiant hearts, filled with a proper faith in heaven.”
Even as he concluded, one at the entrance of the council-house entreated entrance. It proved to be a priest, the Reverend Father Salvandi, who brought with him a strange man, overgrown with beard, and partly in the costume of a mariner.
“My son,” said the priest, “here is the very man you want. This is one Francis Jean, a Frenchman,—once a heretic, but now, conscious of his errors, and repentant in the hands of Holy Church. He hath recanted of his sins, and hath come back willingly to the folds of Christ. He hath fled from La Caroline, from the cruelties of Laudonniere, the heretic, and will report what he knows, touching the condition of the Lutheran fortress and the people thereof.”
“Said I not, my comrades, that God would provide!” cried Melendez in exultation. “This is the very man whom we want. What art thou?”—to the Frenchman.
“I was a heretic, my lord,—I am now a Christian. I was beaten by Laudonniere, and I fled from him, taking off one of his barques. He hath sworn my life; I would take his. I know the route to La Caroline. I will show the way to your soldiers.”
“Ah! Laudonniere will hang you, if he gets you into his power.”