On this, pointing at his shirt, they expressed a peculiar admiration for that garment, and begged each to have one, to be worn at feasts and councils during life, and in their graves after death. Gourgues complied; and his grateful confederates were soon stalking about him, fluttering in the spoils of his ravished wardrobe.
To learn the strength and position of the Spaniards, Gourgues now sent out three scouts; and with them went Olotoraca, Satouriona's nephew, a young brave of great renown.
The chief, eager to prove his good faith, gave as hostages his only son and his favorite wife. They were sent on board the ships, while the savage concourse dispersed to their encampments, with leaping, stamping, dancing, and whoops of jubilation.
The day appointed came, and with it the savage army, hideous in war-paint and plumed for battle. Their ceremonies began. The woods rang back their songs and yells, as with frantic gesticulations they brandished their war-clubs and vaunted their deeds of prowess. Then they drank the black drink, endowed with mystic virtues to steel them against hardship and danger; and Gourgues himself pretended to swallow the nauseous decoction.
These ceremonies consumed the day. It was evening before the allies filed off into their forests, and took the path for the Spanish forts. The French, on their part, were to repair by sea to the rendezvous. Gourgues mustered and addressed his men. It was needless: their ardor was at fever-height. They broke in upon his words, and demanded to be led at once against the enemy. Francis Bourdelois, with twenty sailors, was left with the ships. Gourgues affectionately bade him farewell.
"If I am slain in this most just enterprise," he said, "I leave all in your charge, and pray you to carry back my soldiers to France."
There were many embracings among the excited Frenchmen,—many sympathetic tears from those who were to stay behind,—many messages left with them for wives, children, friends, and mistresses; and then this valiant handful pushed their boats from shore. It was a hare-brained venture, for, as young Debré had assured them, the Spaniards on the River of May were four hundred in number, secure behind their ramparts.
Hour after hour the sailors pulled at the oar. They glided slowly past the sombre shores by the shimmering moonlight, the sound of the murmuring surf and the moaning pine-trees. In the gray of the morning, they came to the mouth of a river, probably the Nassau; and here a northeast wind set in with a violence that almost wrecked their boats. Their Indian allies were waiting on the bank, but for a while the gale delayed their crossing. The bolder French would lose no time, rowed through the tossing waves, and, landing safely, left their boats, and pushed into the forest. Gourgues took the lead, in breastplate and back-piece. At his side marched the young chief Olotoraca, a French pike in his hand; and the files of arquebuse-men and armed sailors followed close behind. They plunged through swamps, hewed their way through brambly thickets and the matted intricacies of the forests, and, at five in the afternoon, wellnigh spent with fatigue and hunger, came to a river or inlet of the sea, not far from the first Spanish fort. Here they found three hundred Indians waiting for them.
Tired as he was, Gourgues would not rest. He would fain attack at daybreak, and with ten arquebusiers and his Indian guide he set forth to reconnoitre. Night closed upon him. It was a vain task to struggle on, in pitchy darkness, among trunks of trees, fallen logs, tangled vines, and swollen streams. Gourgues returned, anxious and gloomy. An Indian chief approached him, read through the darkness his perturbed look, and offered to lead him by a better path along the margin of the sea. Gourgues joyfully assented, and ordered all his men to march. The Indians, better skilled in woodcraft, chose the shorter course through the forest.
The French forgot their weariness, and pressed on at speed. At dawn they and their allies met on the bank of a stream, beyond which, and very near, was the fort. But the tide was in. They essayed to cross in vain. Greatly vexed,—for he had hoped to take the enemy asleep,—Gourgues withdrew his soldiers into the forest, where they were no sooner ensconced than a drenching rain fell, and they had much ado to keep their gun-matches burning. The light grew apace. Gourgues plainly saw the fort, whose defences seemed slight and unfinished. He even saw the Spaniards at work within. A feverish interval elapsed. At length the tide was out,—so far, at least, that the stream was fordable. A little higher up, a clump of woods lay between it and the fort. Behind this friendly screen the passage was begun. Each man tied his powder-flask to his steel cap, held his arquebuse above his head with one hand and grasped his sword with the other. The channel was a bed of oysters. The sharp shells cut their feet as they waded through. But the farther bank was gained. They emerged from the water, drenched, lacerated, bleeding, but with unabated mettle. Under cover of the trees Gourgues set them in array. They stood with kindling eyes, and hearts throbbing, but not with fear. Gourgues pointed to the Spanish fort, seen by glimpses between the bushes and brown trunks. "Look!" he said, "there are the robbers who have stolen this land from our King; there are the murderers who have butchered our countrymen!" With voices eager, fierce, but half suppressed, they demanded to be led on.
Gourgues gave the word. Cazenove, his lieutenant, with thirty men, pushed for the fort-gate; himself, with the main body, for the glacis. It was near noon; the Spaniards had just risen from table, and, says the narrative, "were still picking their teeth," when a startled cry rang in their ears,—
"To arms! to arms! The French are coming! the French are coming!"
It was the voice of a cannoneer who had that moment mounted the rampart and seen the assailants advancing in unbroken ranks, with heads lowered and weapons at the charge. He fired his cannon among them. He even had time to load and fire again, when the light-limbed Olotoraca bounded forward, ran up the glacis, leaped the unfinished ditch, and drove his pike through the Spaniard from breast to back. Gourgues was now on the glacis, when he heard Cazenove shouting from the gate that the Spaniards were escaping on that side. He turned and led his men thither at a run. In a moment, the fugitives, sixty in all, were inclosed between his party and that of his lieutenant. The Indians, too, came leaping to the spot. Not a Spaniard escaped. All were cut down but a few, reserved by Gourgues for a more inglorious end.
Meanwhile the Spaniards in the other fort, on the opposite shore, cannonaded the victors without ceasing. The latter turned four captured guns against them. One of Gourgues's boats, a very large one, had been brought along-shore. He entered it, with eighty soldiers, and pushed for the farther bank. With loud yells, the Indians leaped into the water. From shore to shore, the St. John's was alive with them. Each held his bow and arrows aloft in one hand, while he swam with the other. A panic seized the garrison as they saw the savage multitude. They broke out of the fort and fled into the forest. But the French had already landed; and throwing themselves in the path of the fugitives, they greeted them with a storm of lead. The terrified wretches recoiled; but flight was vain. The Indian whoop rang behind them; war-clubs and arrows finished the work. Gourgues's utmost efforts saved but fifteen,—saved them, not out of mercy, but from a refinement of vengeance.
The next day was Quasimodo Sunday, or the Sunday after Easter. Gourgues and his men remained quiet, making ladders for the assault on Fort San Mateo. Meanwhile the whole forest was in arms, and, far and near, the Indians were wild with excitement. They beset the Spanish fort till not a soldier could venture out. The garrison, conscious of their danger, though ignorant of its extent, devised an expedient to gain information, and one of them, painted and feathered like an Indian, ventured within Gourgues's outposts. He himself chanced to be at hand, and by his side walked his constant attendant, Olotoraca. The keen-eyed young savage pierced the cheat at a glance. The spy was seized, and, being examined, declared that there were two hundred and sixty Spaniards in San Mateo, that they believed the French to be two thousand, and were so frightened that they did not know what they did.
Gourgues, well pleased, pushed on to attack them. On Monday evening he sent forward the Indians to ambush themselves on both sides of the fort. In the morning he followed with his Frenchmen; and as the glittering ranks came into view, defiling between the forest and the river, the Spaniards opened on them with culverins from a projecting bastion. The French took cover in the forest with which
