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Page 58
"Oh, sir, know ye aught of a certain noble chevalier of France, by name
R�n� de Laudonniere, and whether he be still alive or no?"
"Ay, that I do. He of whom thou speakest is not only alive, but is
well known to me. Not only that, but it is owing to his pitiful tale
of cruel wrong done to him and those with him in this country that I am
here at this present moment. But thou art overcome with emotion; what
had he to do with thee?"
Upon thus learning that his dearly beloved uncle had escaped, and was
yet alive, R�n� had sunk into a seat, and buried his face in his hands.
In a moment he obtained mastery of himself, and looking up, answered,
"He was all and more to me than an own father; for I am his only
nephew, R�n� de Veaux."
At the utterance of this name De Gourges sprang to his feet, and
regarding his visitor intently, exclaimed,
"What! Do I hear thee truly? Art thou indeed that R�n� de Veaux so
bitterly mourned by the Chevalier Laudonniere, and not the savage thou
seemest? If so, there is the best part of my mission to this new world
accomplished by this meeting."
As R�n� satisfied the other of his identity as the nephew of
Laudonniere, De Gourges embraced him warmly, and would have at once
proclaimed the joyful intelligence to those on deck; but the young man
begged of him to refrain from so doing for yet a short while, as there
was still much that he would say to him alone.
De Gourges consented to this, and R�n� continued:
"Although I am R�n� de Veaux, I am also Ta-lah-lo-ko, head chief of the
Alachua nation, and I have brought with me a party of chosen warriors
which I will place at thy service, if, perchance, thou canst make use
of them. Wilt thou not describe to me the nature of thy business in
these parts, and something of thy plans, and what has been already
accomplished?"
"That will I gladly, my noble savage," answered De Gourges, with a
smile, "and truly I could but lately have made a most excellent use of
these brave warriors of thine, whose service thou dost so promptly
tender."
Then the admiral gave R�n� a brief history of his expedition, its
purpose and results, which was in effect as follows:
He himself had been a prisoner in Spanish dungeons, and had suffered as
a Spanish galley-slave. Upon making his escape and returning to his
own country, he had met his old friend, the Chevalier Laudonniere, and
learned from him of the terrible massacres of the Huguenots,
perpetrated by Menendez and the soldiers at San Augustin. Upon hearing
this tale of wrong and outrage, he had then and there determined to
devote his fortune and his life, if that should be necessary, to the
punishment of these same Spaniards, and to the rescue of such of his
countrymen as might have escaped with their lives, but who still
remained in the New World.
By selling his estates, he had obtained the means to fit out three
ships, and in them had induced a brave company of soldiers and seamen
to accompany him upon what he considered his holy mission.
Ten days before the coming of R�n� he had arrived off San Augustin,
where the Spaniards, supposing his ships to be that of their own
nation, had fired a salute of welcome from the guns of their newly
erected fort.
As De Gourges deemed this place too strong for him to attack, and as he
only wished to recover that which had belonged to the French, he had
not tarried there, but had sailed northward to the River of May, the
name of which the Spaniards had changed to Rio de San Mateo.
He found its entrance guarded by two small forts, one on either side,
which Menendez had built after his capture of Fort Caroline. As the
French ships were of too great draught to cross the bar, De Gourges had
organized an expedition of small boats, and had carried these works,
one after another, by assault.
Having thus effected a landing, and being joined by a large body of
Indians, who had joyfully hailed him as a deliverer from Spanish
cruelties, he had marched to the attack of Fort San Mateo, by which
name Fort Caroline was now called.
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