The spring wore away, and no relief appeared. One thought now engrossed the colonists, that of return to France. Vasseur's ship, the "Breton," still remained in the river, and they had also the Spanish brigantine brought by the mutineers. But these vessels were insufficient, and they prepared to build a new one. The energy of reviving hope lent new life to their exhausted frames. Some gathered pitch in the pine forests; some made charcoal; some cut and sawed timber. The maize began to ripen, and this brought some relief; but the Indians, exasperated and greedy, sold it with reluctance, and murdered two half-famished Frenchmen who gathered a handful in the fields.
The colonists applied to Outina, who owed them two victories. The result was a churlish message and a niggardly supply of corn, coupled with an invitation to aid him against an insurgent chief, one Astina, the plunder of whose villages would yield an ample supply. The offer was accepted. Ottigny and Vasseur set out, but were grossly deceived, led against a different enemy, and sent back empty-handed and half-starved.
They returned to the fort, in the words of Laudonniere, "angry and pricked deepely to the quicke for being so mocked," and, joined by all their comrades, fiercely demanded to be led against Outina, to seize him, punish his insolence, and extort from his fears the supplies which could not be looked for from his gratitude. The commandant was forced to comply. Those who could bear the weight of their armor put it on, embarked, to the number of fifty, in two barges, and sailed up the river under Laudonniere himself. Having reached Outina's landing, they marched inland, entered his village, surrounded his mud-plastered palace, seized him amid the yells and howlings of his subjects, and led him prisoner to their boats. Here, anchored in mid-stream, they demanded a supply of corn and beans as the price of his ransom.
The alarm spread. Excited warriors, bedaubed with red, came thronging from all his villages. The forest along the shore was full of them; and the wife of the chief, followed by all the women of the place, uttered moans and outcries from the strand. Yet no ransom was offered, since, reasoning from their own instincts, they never doubted that, after the price was paid, the captive would be put to death.
Laudonniere waited two days, and then descended the river with his prisoner. In a rude chamber of Fort Caroline the sentinel stood his guard, pike in hand, while before him crouched the captive chief, mute, impassive, and brooding on his woes. His old enemy, Satouriona, keen as a hound on the scent of prey, tried, by great offers, to bribe Laudonniere to give Outina into his hands; but the French captain refused, treated his prisoner kindly, and assured him of immediate freedom on payment of the ransom.
Meanwhile his captivity was bringing grievous affliction on his tribesmen; for, despairing of his return, they mustered for the election of a new chief. Party strife ran high. Some were for a boy, his son, and some for an ambitious kinsman. Outina chafed in his prison on learning these dissentions; and, eager to convince his over-hasty subjects that their chief still lived, he was so profuse of promises that he was again embarked and carried up the river.
At no great distance from Lake George, a small affluent of the St. John's gave access by water to a point within six French leagues of Outina's principal town. The two barges, crowded with soldiers, and bearing also the captive Outina, rowed up this little stream. Indians awaited them at the landing, with gifts of bread, beans, and fish, and piteous prayers for their chief, upon whose liberation they promised an ample supply of corn. As they were deaf to all other terms, Laudonniere yielded, released his prisoner, and received in his place two hostages, who were fast bound in the boats. Ottigny and Arlac, with a strong detachment of arquebusiers, went to receive the promised supplies, for which, from the first, full payment in merchandise had been offered. On their arrival at the village, they filed into the great central lodge, within whose dusky precincts were gathered the magnates of the tribe. Council-chamber, forum, banquet-hall, and dancing-hall all in one, the spacious structure could hold half the population. Here the French made their abode. With armor buckled, and arquebuse matches lighted, they watched with anxious eyes the strange, dim scene, half revealed by the daylight that streamed down through the hole at the apex of the roof. Tall, dark forms stalked to and fro, with quivers at their backs, and bows and arrows in their hands, while groups, crouched in the shadow beyond, eyed the hated guests with inscrutable visages, and malignant, sidelong eyes. Corn came in slowly, but warriors mustered fast. The village without was full of them. The French officers grew anxious, and urged the chiefs to greater alacrity in collecting the promised ransom. The answer boded no good: "Our women are afraid when they see the matches of your guns burning. Put them out, and they will bring the corn faster."
Outina was nowhere to be seen. At length they learned that he was in one of the small huts adjacent. Several of the officers went to him, complaining of the slow payment of his ransom. The kindness of his captors at Fort Caroline seemed to have won his heart. He replied, that such was the rage of his subjects that he could no longer control them; that the French were in danger; and that he had seen arrows stuck in the ground by the side of the path, in token that war was declared. The peril was thickening hourly, and Ottigny resolved to regain the boats while there was yet time.
On the twenty-seventh of July, at nine in the morning, he set his men in order. Each shouldering a sack of corn, they marched through the rows of huts that surrounded the great lodge, and out betwixt the overlapping extremities of the palisade that encircled the town. Before them stretched a wide avenue, three or four hundred paces long, flanked by a natural growth of trees,—one of those curious monuments of native industry to which allusion has already been made. Here Ottigny halted and formed his line of march. Arlac, with eight matchlock men, was sent in advance, and flanking parties were thrown into the woods on either side. Ottigny told his soldiers that, if the Indians meant to attack them, they were probably in ambush at the other end of the avenue. He was right. As Arlac's party reached the spot, the whole pack gave tongue at once. The war-whoop rose, and a tempest of stone-headed arrows clattered against the breast-plates of the French, or, scorching like fire, tore through their unprotected limbs. They stood firm, and sent back their shot so steadily that several of the assailants were laid dead, and the rest, two or three hundred in number, gave way as Ottigny came up with his men.
They moved on for a quarter of a mile through a country, as it seems, comparatively open, when again the war-cry pealed in front, and three hundred savages bounded to the assault. Their whoops were echoed from the rear. It was the party whom Arlac had just repulsed, and who, leaping and showering their arrows, were rushing on again with a ferocity restrained only by their lack of courage. There was no panic among the French. The men threw down their bags of corn, and took to their weapons. They blew their matches, and, under two excellent officers, stood well to their work. The Indians, on their part, showed good discipline after their fashion, and were perfectly under the control of their chiefs. With cries that imitated the yell of owls, the scream of cougars, and the howl of wolves, they ran up in successive bands, let fly their arrows, and instantly fell back, giving place to others. At the sight of the leveled arquebuse, they dropped flat on the ground. Whenever the French charged upon them, sword in hand, they fled through the woods like foxes; and whenever the march was resumed, the arrows were showering again upon the flanks and rear of the retiring band. As they fell, the soldiers picked them up and broke them. Thus, beset with swarming savages, the handful of Frenchmen pushed slowly onward, fighting as they went.
The Indians gradually drew off, and the forest was silent again. Two of the French had been killed and twenty-two wounded, several so severely that they were supported to the boats with the utmost difficulty. Of the corn, two bags only had been brought off.
Famine and desperation now reigned at Fort Caroline. The Indians had killed two of the carpenters; hence long delay in the finishing of the new ship. They would not wait, but resolved to put to sea in the "Breton" and the brigantine. The problem was to