“I answered, that they could give up their arms and place themselves under my mercy,—­that I should do with them what our Lord should order; and from that I did not depart, nor would I, unless God our Lord should otherwise inspire.”

One of the Frenchmen recrossed to consult with his companions.  In two hours he returned, and offered fifty thousand ducats to secure their lives; but Menendez, says his brother-in-law, would give no pledges.  On the other hand, expressions in his own despatches point to the inference that a virtual pledge was given, at least to certain individuals.

The starving French saw no resource but to yield themselves to his mercy.  The boat was again sent across the river.  It returned, laden with banners, arquebuses, swords, targets, and helmets.  The Adelantado ordered twenty soldiers to bring over the prisoners by tens at a time.  He then took the French officers aside behind a ridge of sand, two gunshots from the bank.  Here, with courtesy on his lips and murder reeking at his heart, he said,—­

“Gentlemen, I have but few men, and you are so many, that, if you were free, it would be easy for you to take your satisfaction on us for the people we killed when we took your fort.  Therefore it is necessary that you should go to my camp, four leagues from this place, with your hands tied.”

Accordingly, as each party landed, they were led out of sight behind the sand-hill, and their hands tied at their backs with the match-cords of the arquebuses,—­though not before each had been supplied with food.  The whole day passed before all were brought together, bound and helpless, under the eye of the inexorable Adelantado.  But now Mendoza interposed.  “I was a priest,” he says, “and had the bowels of a man.”  He asked, that, if there were Christians, that is to say Catholics, among the prisoners, they should be set apart.  Twelve Breton sailors professed themselves to be such; and these, together with four carpenters and calkers, “of whom,” writes Menendez, “I was in great need,” were put on board the boat and sent to St. Augustine.  The rest were ordered to march thither by land.

The Adelantado walked in advance till he came to a lonely spot, not far distant, deep among the bush-covered hills.  Here he stopped, and with his cane drew a line in the sand.  The sun was set when the captive Huguenots, with their escort, reached the fatal goal thus marked out.  And now let the curtain drop; for here, in the name of Heaven, the hounds of hell were turned loose, and the savage soldiery, like wolves in a sheepfold, rioted in slaughter.  Of all that wretched company, not one was left alive.

“I had their hands tied behind their backs,” writes the chief criminal, “and themselves passed under the knife.  It appeared to me, that, by thus chastising them, God our Lord and your Majesty were served; whereby in future they will leave us more free from their evil sect, to plant the gospel in these parts.”