foremost chief, shot through the brain by Arlac, filled
them with consternation, and they fled within their defences. Pursuers
and pursued entered pell-mell together. The place was pillaged and
burned, its inmates captured or killed, and the victors returned
triumphant.

CHAPTER V.

1564, 1565.

CONSPIRACY.

In the little world of Fort Caroline, a miniature France, cliques and
parties, conspiracy and sedition, were fast stirring into life.
Hopes had been dashed, and wild expectations had come to naught. The
adventurers had found, not conquest and gold, but a dull exile in
a petty fort by a hot and sickly river, with hard labor, bad fare,
prospective famine, and nothing to break the weary sameness but some
passing canoe or floating alligator. Gathered in knots, they nursed each
other's wrath, and inveighed against the commandant. Why are we put on
half-rations, when he told us that provision should be made for a full
year? Where are the reinforcements and supplies that he said should
follow us from France? And why is he always closeted with Ottigny,
Arlac, and this and that favorite, when we, men of blood as good as
theirs, cannot gain his ear for a moment?

The young nobles, of whom there were many, were volunteers, who had paid
their own expenses in expectation of a golden harvest, and they chafed
in impatience and disgust. The religious element in the colony--unlike
the former Huguenot emigration to Brazil--was evidently subordinate.
The adventurers thought more of their fortunes than of their faith;
yet there were not a few earnest enough in the doctrine of Geneva to
complain loudly and bitterly that no ministers had been sent with them.
The burden of all grievances was thrown upon Laudonniere, whose greatest
errors seem to have arisen from weakness and a lack of judgment,--fatal
defects in his position.

The growing discontent was brought to a partial head by one La Roquette,
who gave out that, high up the river, he had discovered by magic a
mine of gold and silver, which would give each of them a share of ten
thousand crowns, besides fifteen hundred thousand for the King. But for
Laudonniere, he said, their fortunes would all be made. He found an ally
in a gentleman named Genre, one of Laudonniere's confidants, who, while
still professing fast adherence to his interests, is charged by him with
plotting against his life. "This Genre," he says, "secretly enfourmed
the Souldiers that were already subor