matted vegetation, and recognized Challeux and his companions, also in quest of the vessels.  The old man still, as he tells us, held fast to his chisel, which had done good service in cutting poles to aid the party to cross the deep creeks that channelled the morass.  The united band, twenty-six in all, were relieved at length by the sight of a moving sail.  It was the vessel of Captain Mallard, who, informed of the massacre, was standing along-shore in the hope of picking up some of the fugitives.  He saw their signals, and sent boats to their rescue; but such was their exhaustion, that, had not the sailors, wading to their armpits among the rushes, borne them out on their shoulders, few could have escaped.  Laudonniere was so feeble that nothing but the support of a soldier, who held him upright in his arms, had saved him from drowning in the marsh.

Gaining the friendly decks, the fugitives counselled together.  One and all, they sickened for the sight of France.

After waiting a few days, and saving a few more stragglers from the marsh, they prepared to sail.  Young Ribaut, though ignorant of his father’s fate, assented with something more than willingness; indeed, his behavior throughout had been stamped with weakness and poltroonery.  On the twenty-fifth of September, they put to sea in two vessels; and, after a voyage whose privations were fatal to many of them, they arrived, one party at Rochelle, the other at Swansea, in Wales.

In suspense and fear, hourly looking seaward for the dreaded fleet of John Ribaut, the chaplain Mendoza and his brother priests held watch and ward at St. Augustine, in the Adelantado’s absence.  Besides the celestial guardians whom they ceased not to invoke, they had as protectors Bartholomew Menendez, the brother of the Adelantado, and about a hundred soldiers.  Day and night, the latter toiled to throw up earthworks and strengthen their position.

A week elapsed, when they saw a man running towards their fort, shouting as he ran.

Mendoza went out to meet him.

“Victory!  Victory!” gasped the breathless messenger.  “The French fort is ours!” And he flung his arms about the chaplain’s neck.

“To-day,” writes the latter in his journal, “Monday, the twenty-fourth, came our good general himself, with fifty soldiers, very tired, like all those who were with him.  As soon as they told me he was coming, I ran to my lodging, took a new cassock, the best I had, put on my surplice, and went out to meet him with a crucifix in my hand; whereupon he, like a gentleman and a good Christian, kneeled down with all his followers, and gave the Lord a thousand thanks for the great favors he had received from Him.”

In solemn procession, four priests in front chanting the Te Deum, the victors entered St. Augustine in triumph.

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 some four leagues off, on the banks of a river or arm of the sea, which they could not cross.