WE PUT TO SEA.
After waiting all night and part of the next day we returned to the
Fort, leaving a guard upon the beach, with cannon to assist the ships
should they be attacked.
That night there was a council of war. Laudonnière was sick in his bed,
so we went to his chamber, standing and sitting at the bedside. There
were La Grange, Sainte Marie, Ottigny, Visty, Yonville, De Brésac and
others. The Admiral spoke boldly and at some length. He outlined his
plan, which was nothing less than an immediate attack by sea upon San
Augustin, before the Spaniards had time to well entrench themselves
against attack. His eye flashed as he spoke and he was good to see, for
there is naught so fine as the light of battle in the eyes of a man
of years. The younger men were with him body and heart, for the very
boldness of the plan was to their liking.
When he had finished, Laudonnière answered, favoring the plan of
remaining at Fort Caroline to fortify it against attack. La Grange and
Sainte Marie got upon their feet and spoke briefly to the same effect.
They all said that having lived in these parts for nearly two years,
they were better qualified to speak of these things; they thought it
dangerous to venture upon that coast in the month of September or
October, for the storms came with terrible swiftness and devastation.
Ribault reproved them for their timidity, asking whether they were
valiant sailor-men of France or dogs of Spaniards? Then he read a
letter from Admiral Coligny which he took to be an order to attack this
same Admiral Pedro Menendez if he ventured within the dominions of New
France. By sea, the distance was short and the route explored. It was
the proper strategy. With a sudden blow we would capture or destroy the
Spanish ships, and master the troops on shore before their companions
upon the sea could arrive.
Laudonnière, having been superseded in his command, had no actual
control in the matter, and though the Admiral spoke kindly to him
and to the other officers, the orders were at once issued for the
expedition. In order that there might be no possibility of miscarriage,
the most of the available men of the Fort as well as of the ships were
to be taken. Not only were all the officers and soldiers of the new
expedition to go but also La Caille, Laudonnière’s sergeant-major, his
Ensign--Arlac, De Brésac a friend of La Caille, Ottigny, La Grange and
the very pick of his men.
This was little to my liking. With these men gone and Laudonnière ill,
the Fort lay practically at the mercy of the enemy, were they Spaniards
or Indians. The Sieur de la Notte would come upon the _Trinity_ in
spite of all that I could urge, for though not born to the command of
men, he had a love for play with the steel and went where he felt his
duty strongest.
I could not conceal my fears, even from the Vicomte de la Notte. All
that was for me in this world would be left behind in a crumbling
fort with no one to defend. Of those to remain, but seventeen men of
Laudonnière and nine or ten of Ribault were in condition to bear arms,
and some of these were servants, one of them being the Admiral’s cook
and two others his dog-boys. There was an old carpenter of threescore
named Challeux, two shoemakers, an old cross-bow maker, a player upon
the spinet and four valets--a beggarly array of fighting men surely to
defend the one hundred and fifty women, children and camp-followers the
Admiral would leave behind! I went to him, but he would not listen to
me. His mind was made to carry out all these plans, he said; and so I
left him. La Grange and Ottigny went to him again; but we saw that it
was useless. I then sought Madame and Mademoiselle in their chamber in
the living quarters.
We had only a short time, but Mademoiselle and I went out upon the
bastion and stood by the breeching of one of the cannon, looking out to
sea. The air was close and sultry and not a breath stirred the trees
to the back of us or rippled the surface of the river that flowed,
deep and sluggish, below. The leaves, half turned in color and wet by
a rain-storm during the night, hung sere and motionless. The standard
above our heads hung closely about the staff, drooped and faded. The
ships in the river were shaking out their sails, which fell heavily and
hung from their yards in straight and listless folds to the deck. The
men moved down from the Fort to the boats as though they had no joy
in the undertaking. There was no gleam upon their breastpieces, for
the sun did not shine that morning, and never the rollicking song that
means so much to the man-at-arms. I was in no cheerful disposition, and
there was a reflection of my mood in the manner of Mademoiselle.
“There is no great danger,” I began, “and we will return within the
week. I have asked your father to stay, as he can be of no great
service in a culverin fight, or a fight of ships. But he will go.”
“If there is a battle,” she smiled, “it were difficult to keep him
where the women and children are. He hath ever given a good account of
himself.”
“Yes, Mademoiselle, but he should not go.”
I said it in a tone so convincing that she looked at me to get my
meaning. I had not meant to betray my uneasiness to her, but with her
woman’s wit she guessed my thought.
“You are thinking of us,” she said quietly.
I did not answer. I looked down at the ground, tapping my boot with my
scabbard.
“I know not what it is, Mademoiselle, but my mind is deep in
melancholy.”
She looked across to the pine barrens, sighing.
“It is the dying of the year or some movement of the elements,” she
replied.
“Yes, doubtless that is it.”
And then we both sat silent again.
“Mademoiselle, you know that Don Diego de Baçan is there,” I said at
last, pointing to the southward. “If anything should happen that we
do not return so soon as we expect, promise me that you will yourself
cause a private watch to be kept at the gates of Fort Caroline. If
there are signs of attack, go at once with Madame to the woods. Forgive
me, Mademoiselle, for asking you to bear a part of my uneasiness, but
there are not many wise heads at Fort Caroline.”
She smiled a little at my eagerness.
“I have no fear of Diego de Baçan, or Menendez de Avilés,” she replied,
“but I will do as you wish.” She then took from the breast of her gown
a straight dagger, long and fine. As I looked at it a chill went over
me and I held up my hands before my eyes.
“Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!” I cried in anguish.
She held the weapon poised a moment on her finger-tips looking at it
strangely, then slowly set it in its sheath and returned it to her
breast. I looked her in the eyes and they were calm. I knew that she
would do as she meant. She stood straight as any one of Satouriona’s
warriors, smiling bravely at me, and I wished that I might take her in
my arms and tell her all that I would before we parted. I looked up
at her, my hands trembling to touch her, my eyes wide with adoration;
and something came over her then that she knew how deep I loved her.
For a great tear came to her eye and trickled down upon her cheek. But
she brushed it away brusquely with the back of her hand. She thrust
her fingers toward me, turning her head away; and I pressed them to my
lips, kissing them blindly--blindly many times.
“God bless you, Mademoiselle!” I murmured.
Then I left her. That was the memory of Diane de la Notte I carried out
to sea.
We entered pinnaces at about four of the afternoon and put out across
the bar for the _Trinity_, which, swinging wide at her anchorage,
rolled upon the glassy water, light as a feather. For the cargo was
out of her and she sat high and proud, for all the world like a great
swan. There was no air stirring and the surface of the sea was like
oil,--I felt again the same ominous foreboding of impending evil.
There had been a storm somewhere, for the waves rolled in and burst
with a roar upon the beach below us. It was choppy over the bar, but
beyond a wetting we got upon the ship safely enough. I liked not the
looks of the sky and sea. Overhead the clouds hung dark and heavy, for
though ’twas a full hour before sunset the sky was so gloomy that all
the lanthorns below were lighted. We could see all around the horizon,
for the air was most clear and the blue black line of it came strong
against the coppery glow of the heavens to the east and southward. The
sand upon the shore gleamed white by contrast against the dark green of
the pines beyond, which cut across the sky-line so black that you could
see with distinctness each particular needle and spur. The thunder of
the surf was loud above the dip and murmur of the ship, and to the
southward along the coast as far as the eye could reach the white lines
of froth, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, rolled in from
the outer bar.
It was no pleasant berth for a ship of our size upon a lee shore. She
could not go into any of the rivers as the _Pearl_ and the _Jesus_
could, and I was for putting to sea at once, where in the open we
could clew up everything and run for it if a storm were brewing. The
Admiral and the Captain Bourdelais were upon the after-castle in
conversation and looking at the sky or up the river toward the Fort,
where the Captain La Grange, with one of the vessels of Laudonnière,
still tarried. It was plain to be seen that they liked the looks of
the weather no better than I, for in a little while orders were passed
forward to secure everything for sea, and the anchor was hove up to a
short cable. Before dark La Grange appeared, and as a light breeze had
sprung up, signals were flashed and we put out to sea under all plain
sail. As soon as the sheets had been trimmed aft and the course had
been set down the coast, I took a lanthorn and lay below decks with one
of the midship’s men of the watch to see that all was secure in the
hold and cabins.
When I went under the half deck and opened the hatch to the quarters
of the men, a cloud of blue smoke rolled out and I thought there must
be a fire. There, upon a sea-chest, sitting most disconsolate, was my
Englishman, Job Goddard. Around him in a half-moon was a crowd of the
French bowmen and arquebusiers holding their sides and laughing at his
plight. For while I looked he put his hand upon his stomach, retching
and groaning like a person ill unto death.
“Why, how now, Job Goddard,” I laughed--for the ship was pitching--“is
this your maiden voyage?”
But Goddard only bent the further forward, and the bowmen laughed the
more. At this I feared ’twas serious, for Goddard was no man to be
laughed at by any Frenchman.
I went over to him and clapped my hand upon his shoulder. “Chut, man,”
said I half angrily, “what is it? Speak up!”
And with that he turned toward me the sorriest look and wryest face I
have ever beheld upon mortal man. But he made no sign that he heard me
or indeed that he was aware of my presence, only gripping his middle
and groaning the louder. I made a shrewd guess that ’twas no vital
sickness that had come upon him, and remembering how I had once before
seen a man cured of some such an ailment, without further ado I fetched
him a resounding whack upon the thigh.
I had not counted upon so speedy a recovery, for I had scarce time
to spring behind him when he flew into the air and in the very thick
of the Frenchmen--striking this way and that with feet and hands,
until two of the arquebusiers measured their length upon the floor
and the rest of them were flying in all directions before the fury of
his onslaught. Unable longer to restrain myself I burst into a fit of
laughter, which even my sense of authority could not withhold.
It was not until then that Goddard espied me. His countenance fell and
he looked around him as though to gather his wits. But in a moment
he walked over to his sea-chest, and I saw that he had been sucking
upon one of these tobacco reeds which Vasseur had described to me. He
looked at the packet and bowl a moment stupidly and then, with a sudden
motion, dashed them upon the deck, where they broke into a hundred
pieces.
Then and not until then would he speak.
“Blow me, sir,” said he, “if I bean’t sick at me stomick.” The
expression of his face at this unaccustomed sensation was so comical
that I could not blame the Frenchmen, and I laughed as loud as the best
of them.
The next morning when within but two leagues of San Augustin the wind
fell again to the same dead, sluggish calm of the day before, and we
could make no progress; but plain to the naked eye behind the sand spit
at the entrance showed the vessels of the Spaniards, where they had
anchored to receive us.
The weather by now was growing thicker and thicker, and in an hour
we saw that a squall would strike us. We had barely time to get our
canvas in when down it came with great force and away we rode trying to
bear up against it. Close as we hauled we could not get to the harbor
and give battle; and so the Admiral, seeing that some of the smaller
vessels would be blown ashore, signaled for all to follow, and under
storm-sails stood off until the tempest should abate. Had we held on
so close to that lee shore some of our vessels must surely have fallen
into the hands of the Spaniards.
But the storm showed no sign of abating. Before noon the wind increased
to such a force that the vessels could wear but their very lightest
canvas; and heavy gusts of wind came now and then, in which those sails
cracked and strained, the ship groaning like a thing in pain.
Bourdelais stood upon the poop glancing first at the slatting canvas
and then at the Spanish vessels within the harbor, growing every moment
more indistinct in the wrack and mist under our lee. De Brésac, who
had stood fingering his sword-hilt impatiently, awaiting the beginning
of the battle, had railed so openly at the Admiral’s decision to put
to sea, that he had been sent below, like a sulky boy, to recover his
usual tepor. Salvation Smith had stopped reading to Job Goddard from
the “Martyrs,”--his accustomed relish before going into battle--and sat
moody and dispirited in the lee of the barge in the waist, while his
companion swore softly to himself.
I doubted not, it was a wise decision to put to sea, but to me it
seemed a bitter thing to be forced to turn aside from a battle which
meant so much to us all. If Ribault himself had any doubts as to
his decision, he did not show them; for he paced up and down the
quarter-deck, his calm demeanor setting a worthy example in forbearance
to the younger and less moderate among us, who were anxious to be up
and at our enemies, and found small pleasure in a sailing drill upon
the ocean when other and more troublous business might have been doing.
The next day the wind went down. From green the sea had turned to gray.
But the waves did not break in masses of foam. They boiled along,
churning and seething as though disturbed by some mighty current
beneath. Only the crest, in a wall of amber thin as parchment, was
tossed up to curl and break in a jet of spray; and broken lines of
gray swayed and rolled athwart the trough where the foam had been. The
clouds from brown had turned to a heavy blue, the color of a Spanish
blade. They hung low and menacing, while great fingers of them curled
and twisted like furies, or shot out in long lines here and there to be
torn to pieces and carried in shreds down to leeward.
For six days this weather continued. There was no great danger to the
ships so long as it blew no harder. The Admiral was running around this
mounthsoun, as he called it, which came up from the south. Could we
but go through it, all danger would be past; but in this sea it would
have been destruction to some of his fleet to have hazarded an approach
to San Augustin again. We could get no sight of clear sky; but by the
drift and speed I made it that we had gone three hundred leagues or so
to the north and into the Mares’ sea, as it has come to be called.
Here we saw no longer the great rollers of the coast, for the wind now
blew fitfully from the east and the waves ran first in one way and then
in another. The sky lightened a little and the Admiral, thinking the
storm had gone out to sea, shifted his helm and put about again.
The Sieur de la Notte, who was chafing under this delay, could hardly
restrain his great anxiety. The Spaniards had seen us struggling in the
face of the storm and might conceive the bold project to attack Fort
Caroline before the ships returned. The very thought of it filled my
heart with dread, and I could not forbear speaking of it to Ribault.
That was the only time I had ever seen him angry. He flashed upon me,
his features distorted with rage. He had seized a pin from the rail and
I thought for the moment he would strike me with it.
“You Anglais are always meddling,” he shouted. “What have you to do
with this command?”
But I did not move. I looked at him squarely and some one took the pin
away from him; then he went below.
It was plain to see, none the less, that the situation of the French
and the Spanish had changed. Here were we, many leagues upon the ocean,
at the mercy of the winds and seas; while the Spaniards, our deadliest
enemies, outnumbering us two to one, were ashore, and but two days’
march from all we had in New France--all the most of us had anywhere
upon the face of the earth!
Would we never come to land again? And, Mademoiselle!
I dared not think!