fiercest hordes of the wilderness; and when night closed on the stormy
river and the gloomy waste of pines, what dreams of terror may not
have haunted the helpless women who crouched under the hovels of Fort
Caroline!

The fort was in a ruinous state, with the palisade on the water side
broken down, and three breaches in the rampart. In the driving rain,
urged by the sick Laudonniere, the men, bedrenched and disheartened,
labored as they could to strengthen their defences. Their muster-roll
shows but a beggarly array. "Now," says Laudonniere, "let them which
have bene bold to say that I had men ynough left me, so that I had
meanes to defend my selfe, give care a little now vnto mee, and if they
have eyes in their heads, let them see what men I had." Of Ribaut's
followers left at the fort, only nine or ten had weapons, while only two
or three knew how to use them. Four of them were boys, who kept Ribaut's
dogs, and another was his cook. Besides these, he had left a brewer, an
old crossbow-maker, two shoemakers, a player on the spinet, four valets,
a carpenter of threescore,--Challeux, no doubt, who has left us the
story of his woes,--with a crowd of women, children, and eighty-six
camp-followers. To these were added the remnant of Laudonniere's men,
of whom seventeen could bear arms, the rest being sick or disabled by
wounds received in the fight with Outina.

Laudonniere divided his force, such as it was, into two watches,
over which he placed two officers, Saint Cler and La Vigne, gave them
lanterns for going the rounds, and an hour-glass for setting the time;
while he himself, giddy with weakness and fever, was every night at the
guard-room.

It was the night of the nineteenth of September, the season of tempests;
floods of rain drenched the sentries on the rampart, and, as day dawned
on the dripping barracks and deluged parade, the storm increased in
violence. What enemy could venture out on such a night? La Vigne, who
had the watch, took pity on the sentries and on himself, dismissed them,
and went to his quarters. He little knew what human energies, urged by
ambition, avarice, bigotry, and desperation, will dare and do.

To return to the Spaniards at St. Augustine. On the morning of the
eleventh, the crew of one of their smaller vessels, lying outside the
bar, with Menendez himself on board, saw through the twilight of early
dawn two of Ribaut's ships close upon them. Not a breath of air was
stirring. There was