To return to the Spaniards at St. Augustine.  On the morning of the eleventh, the crew of one of their smaller vessels, lying outside the bar, saw through the twilight of early dawn two of Ribaut’s ships close upon them.  Not a breath of air was stirring.  There was no escape, and the Spaniards fell on their knees in supplication to Our Lady of Utrera, explaining to her that the heretics were upon them, and begging her to send them a little wind.  “Forthwith,” says Mendoza, “one would have said that Our Lady herself came down upon the vessel.”  A wind sprang up, and the Spaniards found refuge behind the bar.  The returning day showed to their astonished eyes all the ships of Ribaut, their decks black with men, hovering off the entrance of the port; but Heaven had them in its charge, and again they experienced its protecting care.  The breeze sent by Our Lady of Utrera rose to a gale, then to a furious tempest; and the grateful Adelantado saw through rack and mist the ships of his enemy tossed wildly among the raging waters as they struggled to gain an offing.  With exultation at his heart the skilful seaman read their danger, and saw them in his mind’s eye dashed to utter wreck among the sand-bars and breakers of the lee-shore.

A bold thought seized him.  He would march overland with five hundred men and attack Fort Caroline while its defenders were absent.  First he ordered a mass; then he called a council.  Doubtless, it was in that great Indian lodge of Seloy, where he had made his head-quarters; and here, in this dim and smoky concave, nobles, officers, priests, gathered at his summons.  There were fears and doubts and murmurings, but Menendez was desperate.  Not the mad desperation that strikes wildly and at random, but the still red heat that melts and burns and seethes with a steady, unquenchable fierceness.  “Comrades,” he said, “the time has come to show our courage and our zeal.  This is God’s war, and we must not flinch.  It is a war with Lutherans, and we must wage it with blood and fire.”

But his hearers would not respond.  They had not a million of ducats at stake, and were nowise ready for a cast so desperate.  A clamor of remonstrance rose from the circle.  Many voices, that of Mendoza among the rest, urged waiting till their main forces should arrive.  The excitement spread to the men without, and the swarthy, black-bearded crowd broke into tumults mounting almost to mutiny, while an officer was heard to say that he would not go on such a hare-brained errand to be butchered like a beast.  But nothing could move the Adelantado.  His appeals or his threats did their work at last; the confusion was quelled, and preparation was made for the march.

Five hundred arquebusiers and pikemen were drawn up before the camp.

To each was given a sack of bread and a flagon of wine.  Two Indians and a renegade Frenchman, called Francois Jean, were to guide them, and twenty Biscayan axe-men moved to the front to clear the way.  Through floods of driving rain, a hoarse voice shouted the word of command, and the sullen march began.