preparation,
and troops of women busied in sweeping the great circular area where the
ceremonies were to take place. But as the noisy and impertinent guests
showed a disposition to undue merriment, the chief shut them all in
his wigwam, lest their Gentile eyes should profane the mysteries.
Here, immured in darkness, they listened to the howls, yelpings, and
lugubrious songs that resounded from without. One of them, however, by
some artifice, contrived to escape, hid behind a bush, and saw the
whole solemnity,--the procession of the medicinemen and the bedaubed
and befeathered warriors; the drumming, dancing, and stamping; the wild
lamentation of the women as they gashed the arms of the young girls
with sharp mussel-shells, and flung the blood into the air with dismal
outcries. A scene of ravenous feasting followed, in which the French,
released from durance, were summoned to share.

After the carousal they returned to Charlesfort, where they were soon
pinched with hunger. The Indians, never niggardly of food, brought them
supplies as long as their own lasted; but the harvest was not yet ripe,
and their means did not match their good-will. They told the French of
two other kings, Ouade and Couexis, who dwelt towards the south, and
were rich beyond belief in maize, beans, and squashes. The mendicant
colonists embarked without delay, and, with an Indian guide, steered
for the wigwams of these potentates, not by the open sea, but by a
perplexing inland navigation, including, as it seems, Calibogue Sound
and neighboring waters. Reaching the friendly villages, on or near the
Savannah, they were feasted to repletion, and their boat was laden with
vegetables and corn. They returned rejoicing; but their joy was short.
Their store-house at Charlesfort, taking fire in the night, burned to
the ground, and with it their newly acquired stock.

Once more they set out for the realms of King Ouade, and once more
returned laden with supplies. Nay, the generous savage assured them
that, so long as his cornfields yielded their harvests, his friends
should not want.

How long this friendship would have lasted may well be doubted. With the
perception that the dependants on their bounty were no demigods, but a
crew of idle and helpless beggars, respect would soon have changed to
contempt, and contempt to ill-will. But it was not to Indian war-clubs
that the infant colony was to owe its ruin. It carried within itself
its own destruction. Th