Part 19 (1/2)

NOTE

This story follows closely the ”Relacion of Cabeca de Vaca.” It ill.u.s.trates the resourcefulness, bravery and ingenuity of Spanish cavaliers of the heroic age as hardly any other episode does.

LONE BAYOU

De Soto was a gentleman of Spain In those proud years when Spanish chivalry From fierce adventure never did refrain,-- Ruler of argosies that ruled the sea, She looked on lesser nations in disdain, As born to trafficking or slavery.

In s.h.i.+ning armor, and with shot and steel Abundantly purveyed for their delight, Banners before whose Cross the foe should kneel, His company embarked--how great a light Through men's perversity to stoop and reel Down through calamity to endless night!

Yet unsubmissive, obdurately bold, The savages refused to serve their need.

They would not guide the conquerors to their gold, Nor though cast in the fire like a weed Or driven by stern compulsion to the fold, Would they abandon their unhallowed creed.

The forest folk in terror broke and fled Like fish before the fierce pursuing pike.

The stubborn chiefs as hostages were led-- And in the wilderness, a grisly d.y.k.e Of slaves and captives, lay the heathen dead, And the black bayou claims all dead alike.

Then southward through the haunted bearded trees The Spaniards fought their way--Mauila's fires Devoured their vestments and their chalices, Their sacramental wine and bread--the choirs No longer sang their requiems, and the seas Lay between them and all their sacred spires.

At last in a lone cabin, where the cane Hid the black mire before the lowly door, De Soto died--although they sought to feign By some pretended magic mirror's lore That still he lived, a gentleman of Spain,-- And the dread flood rolled onward to the sh.o.r.e!

XIV

THE FACE OF THE TERROR

”Paris is no place in these times for a Huguenot lad from Navarre,” said Dominic de Gourgues, of Mont-de-Marsan in Gascony. ”His father, Francois Debre, did me good service in the Spanish Indies. One of these days, Philip and his bloodhounds will be pulled down by these young terriers they have orphaned.”

”If the Jesuits have their way all Huguenots will be exterminated, men, women and children,” said Laudonniere, with a gleam of melancholy sarcasm in his dark pensive eyes. ”Life to a Jesuit is quite simple.”

”My faith,” said Gascon, twisting his mustache, ”they may find in that case, that other people can be simple too. But I must be off. I thank you for making a place for Pierre.”

In consequence of this conversation, when Ribault's fleet anch.o.r.ed near the River of May, on June 25, 1564, Pierre Debre was hanging to the collars of two of Laudonniere's deerhounds and gazing in silent wonder at the strange and beautiful land.

”The fairest, fruitfullest and pleasantest land in all the world,” Jean Ribault had said in his report two years before to Coligny the Great Admiral of France. Live-oaks and cedars untouched for a thousand years were draped in luxuriant grape-vines or wreathed with the mossy gray festoons of ”old men's beard.” Cypress and pine mingled with the s.h.i.+ning foliage of magnolia and palm. From the marsh arose on sudden startled wings mult.i.tudes of water-fowl. The dogs tugged and whined eagerly as if they knew that in these vast hunting-forests there was an abundance of game. In this rich land, thus far neglected by the Spanish conquistadores because it yielded neither gold nor silver, surely the Huguenots might find prosperity and peace. Coligny was a Huguenot and a powerful friend, and if the French Protestants now hunted into the mountains or driven to take refuge in England, could be transplanted to America, France might be spared the horrors of religious civil war.

Pierre was thirteen and looked at least three years older. He could not remember when his people and their Huguenot neighbors had not lived in dread of prison, exile or death. When he was not more than ten years old he had guided their old pastor to safety in a mountain cave, and seen men die, singing, for their faith. After the death of his father and mother he had lived for awhile with his mother's people in Navarre, and since they were poor and bread was hard to come by he had run away the year before and found his way to Paris, where Dominic de Gourgues had found him. If the Huguenots had a safe home he might be able to repay the kindness of his cousins. Meanwhile the country, the wild creatures, the copper-colored people and the hard work of landing colonists and supplies were full of interest and excitement for Pierre.

Satouriona, the Indian chief, showed the French officers the pillar which Ribault's party had set up on their previous visit to mark their discovery. The faithful savages had kept it wreathed with evergreens and decked with offerings of maize and fruits as if it were an altar.

Unfortunately not all the colonists were of heroic mind. Most who had left France to seek their fortunes were merchants, craftsman and young Huguenot n.o.blemen whose swords were uneasy in time of peace. French farm-laborers were mainly serfs on Catholic estates, and landowners did not wish to come to the New World. Thus the people of the settlement were city folk with little experience or inclination for cultivating the soil. The Indians grew tired of supplying the wants of so large a number of strangers. Quarrels arose among the French. A discontented group of adventurers mutinied and went off on a wild attempt at piracy. They plundered two s.h.i.+ps in the Spanish Indies and were caught by the Spanish governor. The twenty-six who escaped his clutches fled back to the fort, which Laudonniere had built and named Carolina. His faithful lieutenant La Caille arrested them and dragged them to judgment. ”Say what you will,” said one of the culprits ruefully, ”if Laudonniere does not hang us I will never call him an honest man.” The four leaders were promptly sentenced to be hanged, but the sentence was commuted to shooting. After that order reigned, for a time.

Some of the tradesmen ranged the wilderness, bringing back feather mantles, arrows tipped with gold, curiously wrought quivers of beautiful fur, wedges of a green stone like beryl. There were reports of a gold mine somewhere in the northern mountains. Ribault did not return with the expected supplies, the Indians had mostly left the neighborhood, and misery and starvation followed, for the game, like the Indians fled the presence of the white men. The Governor began to think of crowding the survivors into the two little s.h.i.+ps he had and returning to France.

Matters were in this unsatisfactory state when Captain John Hawkins in his great seven-hundred-ton s.h.i.+p the _Jesus_, with three smaller ones, the _Solomon_, the _Tiger_ and the _Swallow_, put in at the River of May for a supply of fresh water. He gave them provisions, and offered readily to take them back to France on his way to England, but this offer Laudonniere declined.

”Monsieur Hawkins is a good fellow,” he observed dryly to La Caille, ”and I am grateful to him, but that is no reason why I should abandon this land to his Queen, and that is what he is hoping that I may do.”