Part 7 (1/2)
On the twenty-eighth, when the weary Adelantado was taking his siesta under the sylvan roof of Seloy, a troop of Indians came in with news that quickly roused him from his slumbers. They had seen a French vessel wrecked on the coast towards the south. Those who escaped from her were four or six leagues off, on the banks of a river or arm of the sea, which they could not cross.
Menendez instantly sent forty or fifty men in boats to reconnoitre.
Next, he called the chaplain,--for he would fain have him at his elbow to countenance the deeds he meditated,--and, with him twelve soldiers and two Indian guides, embarked in another boat. They rowed along the channel between Anastasia Island and the main sh.o.r.e; then they landed, struck across the island on foot, traversed plains and marshes, reached the sea towards night, and searched along sh.o.r.e till ten o'clock to find their comrades who had gone before. At length, with mutual joy, the two parties met, and bivouacked together on the sands. Not far distant they could see lights. These were the camp-fires of the s.h.i.+pwrecked French.
To relate with precision the fortunes of these unhappy men is impossible; for henceforward the French narratives are no longer the narratives of eye-witnesses.
It has been seen how, when on the point of a.s.sailing the Spaniards at St. Augustine, Jean Ribaut was thwarted by a gale, which they hailed as a divine interposition. The gale rose to a tempest of strange fury.
Within a few days, all the French s.h.i.+ps were cast on sh.o.r.e, between Matanzas Inlet and Cape Canaveral. According to a letter of Menendez, many of those on h.o.a.rd were lost; but others affirm that all escaped but a captain, La Grange, an officer of high merit, who was washed from a floating mast. One of the s.h.i.+ps was wrecked at a point farther northward than the rest, and it was her company whose campfires were seen by the Spaniards at their bivouac on the sands of Anastasia Island. They were endeavoring to reach Fort Caroline, of the fate of which they knew nothing, while Ribaut with the remainder was farther southward, struggling through the wilderness towards the same goal. What befell the latter will appear hereafter. Of the fate of the former party there is no French record. What we know of it is due to three Spanish eye-witnesses, Mendoza, Doctor Soils de las Meras, and Menendez himself.
Soils was a priest, and brother-in-law to Menendez. Like Mendoza, he minutely describes what he saw, and, like him, was a red-hot zealot, lavis.h.i.+ng applause on the darkest deeds of his chief. But the princ.i.p.al witness, though not the most minute or most trustworthy, is Menendez, in his long despatches sent from Florida to the King, and now first brought to light from the archives of Seville,--a cool record of unsurpa.s.sed atrocities, inscribed on the back with the royal indors.e.m.e.nt, ”Say to him that he has done well.”
When the Adelantado saw the French fires in the distance, he lay close in his bivouac, and sent two soldiers to reconnoitre. At two o'clock in the morning they came back, and reported that it was impossible to get at the enemy, since they were on the farther side of an arm of the sea (Matanzas Inlet). Menendez, however, gave orders to march, and before daybreak reached the hither bank, where he hid his men in a bushy hollow. Thence, as it grew light, they could discern the enemy, many of whom were searching along the sands and shallows for sh.e.l.l-fish, for they were famis.h.i.+ng. A thought struck Menendez, an inspiration, says Mendoza, of the Holy Spirit. He put on the clothes of a sailor, entered a boat which had been brought to the spot, and rowed towards the s.h.i.+pwrecked men, the better to learn their condition. A Frenchman swam out to meet him. Menendez demanded what men they were.
”Followers of Ribaut, Viceroy of the King of France,” answered the swimmer.
”Are you Catholics or Lutherans?”
”All Lutherans.”
A brief dialogue ensued, during which the Adelantado declared his name and character, and the Frenchman gave an account of the designs of Ribaut, and of the disaster that had thwarted them. He then swam back to his companions, but soon returned, and asked safe conduct for his captain and four other gentlemen, who wished to hold conference with the Spanish general. Menendez gave his word for their safety, and, returning to the sh.o.r.e, sent his boat to bring them over. On their landing, he met them very courteously. His followers were kept at a distance, so disposed behind hills and among bushes as to give an exaggerated idea of their force,--a precaution the more needful, as they were only about sixty in number, while the French, says Solfs, were above two hundred.
Menendez, however, declares that they did not exceed a hundred and forty. The French officer told him the story of their s.h.i.+pwreck, and begged him to lend them a boat to aid them in crossing the rivers which lay between them and a fort of their King, whither they were making their way.
Then came again the ominous question,
”Are you Catholics or Lutherans?”
”We are Lutherans.”
”Gentlemen,” pursued Menendez, ”your fort is taken, and all in it are put to the sword.” And, in proof of his declaration, he caused articles plundered from Fort Caroline to be shown to the unhappy pet.i.tioners. He then left them, and went to breakfast with his officers, first ordering food to be placed before them. Having breakfasted, he returned to them.
”Are you convinced now,” he asked, ”that what I have told you is true?”
The French captain a.s.sented, and implored him to lend them s.h.i.+ps in which to return home. Menendez answered that he would do so willingly if they were Catholics, and if he had s.h.i.+ps to spare, but he had none.
The supplicants then expressed the hope that at least they and their followers would be allowed to remain with the Spaniards till s.h.i.+ps could be sent to their relief, since there was peace between the two nations, whose kings were friends and brothers.
”All Catholics,” retorted the Spaniard, ”I will befriend; but as you are of the New Sect, I hold you as enemies, and wage deadly war against you; and this I will do with all cruelty [crueldad] in this country, where I command as Viceroy and Captain-General for my King. I am here to plant the Holy Gospel, that the Indians may be enlightened and come to the knowledge of the Holy Catholic faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Roman Church teaches it. If you will give up your arms and banners, and place yourselves at my mercy, you may do so, and I will act towards you as G.o.d shall give me grace. Do as you will, for other than this you can have neither truce nor friends.h.i.+p with me.”
Such were the Adelantado's words, as reported by a bystanders his admiring brother-in-law and that they contain an implied a.s.surance of mercy has been held, not only by Protestants, but by Catholics and Spaniards. The report of Menendez himself is more brief, and sufficiently equivocal:--
”I answered, that they could give up their arms and place themselves under my mercy,--that I should do with them what our Lord should order; and from that I did not depart, nor would I, unless G.o.d our Lord should otherwise inspire.”
One of the Frenchmen recrossed to consult with his companions. In two hours he returned, and offered fifty thousand ducats to secure their lives; but Menendez, says his brother-in-law, would give no pledges. On the other hand, expressions in his own despatches point to the inference that a virtual pledge was given, at least to certain individuals.
The starving French saw no resource but to yield themselves to his mercy. The boat was again sent across the river. It returned laden with banners, arquebuses, swords, targets, and helmets. The Adelantado ordered twenty soldiers to bring over the prisoners, ten at a time. He then took the French officers aside behind a ridge of sand, two gunshots from the bank. Here, with courtesy on his lips and murder at his heart, he said:
”Gentlemen, I have but few men, and you are so many that, if you were free, it would be easy for you to take your satisfaction on us for the people we killed when we took your fort. Therefore it is necessary that you should go to my camp, four leagues from this place, with your hands tied.”
Accordingly, as each party landed, they were led out of sight behind the sand-hill, and their hands tied behind their backs with the match-cords of the arquebuses, though not before each had been supplied with food. The whole day pa.s.sed before all were brought together, bound and helpless, under the eye of the inexorable Adelantado. But now Mendoza interposed. ”I was a priest,” he says, ”and had the bowels of a man.”
He asked that if there were Christians--that is to say, Catholics--among the prisoners, they should be set apart. Twelve Breton sailors professed themselves to be such; and these, together with four carpenters and calkers, ”of whom,” writes Menendez, ”I was in great need,” were put on board the boat and sent to St. Augustine. The rest were ordered to march thither by land.
The Adelantado walked in advance till he came to a lonely spot, not far distant, deep among the bush-covered hills. Here he stopped, and with his cane drew a line in the sand. The sun was set when the captive Huguenots, with their escort, reached the fatal goal thus marked out.