Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/295

Rh wholly at his own charges, with three vessels and a bold company who knew not their errand, he obtained a commission from the king, nominally for other enterprises. After devious cruisings and adventures, he made known to his company the intent of his schemes. Appealing to them, after their silence and surprise, by the honor and glory of France, to avenge the bitter insult to its dignity, he roused their wildest enthusiasm and impatience to an unsparing wreaking of vengeance. Sailing by the scene of the massacre, where Menendez had strengthened his defences, his vessels exchanged salutes with the batteries of the suspicious foe. Making a landing fifteen leagues above the fort, he found vast numbers of the natives, under the wildest excitement, rushing and foaming in warlike array, and profusely welcoming the strangers as soon as they were known to be Frenchmen. For ruthlessly as the former Huguenot colonists had treated the natives, their behavior and deeds had been gentle compared with the incessant exasperations, outrages, and ingenuities of cruelty endured by them from the Spaniards, against whom their rage had become infuriate.

An alliance was soon formed for joint vengeance between De Gourgues and a countless horde of the painted and yelling natives. The strife was prepared for and the covenant ratified by the fierce pantomime of feast and dancing. The avenging stroke was overwhelming; victory was complete. The hero gave utterance to his scorn and disdain of the butchers, whose own deeds, after they had listened to his invectives, he proceeded to re-enact in summary and sweeping carnage. Imitating with change of terms the inscription which Menendez had raised over his Huguenot victims, De Gourgues burned into a wooden tablet this legend: “Not as to Spaniards, but as to traitors, robbers, and murderers.” Menendez was then in Spain; and as it was no part of De Gourgues' design to meddle with the Spanish fort at St. Augustine, he returned in chivalric triumph to