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Page 60
"Indeed I would! my dear friend, and thou art right. A man's country
and his own people are dearer to him than all the world besides. I did
thee a great wrong in doubting for a moment that thou wouldst not
relinquish all that thou hast gained in this new world, for the sake of
again rejoining those dear to thee in the old. So now let us away with
all speed; and ho, for the Old World once more!"
"Wilt thou, for my sake, delay thy departure for yet two days?" asked
R�n�. "There be certain papers belonging to my uncle Laudonniere which
were removed by me to a place of safety upon the night of the capture
of Fort Caroline. If I can again find and recover them, I doubt not
but they will prove of value to him, and give him cause to welcome my
return with the greater joy."
"Take thou whatever time is necessary for thy business, and I will
await thy pleasure. If it so please thee I will accompany thee and thy
savages to the River of May, and visit once more the ruins of that
stronghold that the Spaniards boasted could not be captured by the half
of France. The ships shall go outside and meet us at the mouth of the
river."
R�n� gladly agreed to this proposition, and De Gourges continued:
"As for making greater thy uncle's joy when he again beholds thee, I
doubt if that will be possible; for he will have no eyes nor thoughts
save for thyself. It may be, however, that these same papers will
prove of greatest value to him, for he is in sore straits for want of
evidence to make good certain claims. It is not forth-coming, and he
alleges that it was destroyed by the Spaniards when they captured Fort
Caroline. Be that as it may, he who should be loaded with honors and
riches now suffers obscurity and poverty, and perchance thou art the
very one who will bring him relief."
It only deepened R�n�'s love for his uncle to learn that he was in
trouble, and increased his desire to hasten to him. Thus it was with
the greatest impatience that he awaited the coming of the daylight,
that should enable them to go in search of the hidden papers.
The next morning R�n� and De Gourges were rowed in one of the ship's
boats to the shell mound, where the war-party of Alachuas was encamped.
Here the boat was dismissed, and the French admiral was given a place
in the young chief's own canoe. He was highly delighted with this, to
him, novel mode of travelling, and was also greatly interested in the
grim Indian warriors by whom he was surrounded. Their unmistakable
devotion to their young chief touched him deeply, and he said to R�n�,
"I know not if, after all, thou hast not found thy truest happiness in
this wilderness."
That night they encamped at the foot of the very bluff on which R�n�
had been captured by the Seminoles. The next morning he and his
new-found friend, accompanied by Yah-chi-la-ne and E-chee, ascended the
river to the fort which had lately been the scene of such thrilling
events. Now, ruined and deserted, it was destined to be forever
abandoned to its own solitude.
Although it filled R�n� with sadness to witness this ruin of what had
once been a home to him, and in the building of which he had taken such
pride, he had rather see it thus than restored to all its former glory,
but remaining in the shadow of the yellow banner of Spain.
Locating as nearly as might be that portion of the ruins beneath which
the tunnel had penetrated, R�n�, and those with him, began a search of
the river-bank for its entrance. At length they discovered not a slab
of bark, such as had formerly covered the entrance, but a block of
stone, of such size that it required their united strength to remove
it. It was also of a color so closely resembling the surrounding soil
that, had they not been looking for some such thing, and been aware of
almost the exact spot in which to search, they would not have noticed
it.
The substitution of this slab of stone for the one of bark proved that
others had meddled with the passage since R�n� last passed through it,
and also that these others were white men, probably Spaniards.
Nevertheless, though he greatly feared that the search would prove
fruitless, for those who had discovered the passage must also have
found its contents, R�n� determined to keep on and explore it to the
end.
Lighting their way with torches, and with R�n� in the lead, the party
entered the tunnel. De Gourges lamented that he had not known of its
existence sooner, in which case he would have used it as a mine, in
which to place powder and blow the walls of the fort about the ears of
the Spaniards.
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