At length the ships lay becalmed in the Bahama Channel, slumbering on the dead and glassy sea, torpid with the heats of a West-Indian August.  Menendez called a council of the commanders.  There was doubt and indecision.  Perhaps Ribaut had already reached the French fort, and then to attack the united force would be a stroke of desperation.  Far better to await their lagging comrades.  But the Adelantado was of another mind; and, even had his enemy arrived, he was resolved that he should have no time to fortify himself.

“It is God’s will,” he said, “that our victory should be due, not to our numbers, but to His all-powerful aid.  Therefore has He stricken us with tempests and scattered our ships.”  And he gave his voice for instant advance.

There was much dispute; even the chaplain remonstrated; but nothing could bend the iron will of Menendez.  Nor was a sign of celestial approval wanting.  At nine in the evening, a great meteor burst forth in mid-heaven, and, blazing like the sun, rolled westward towards the Floridian coast.  The fainting spirits of the crusaders were kindled anew.  Diligent preparation was begun.  Prayers and masses were said; and, that the temporal arm might not be wanting, the men were daily practised on deck in shooting at marks, in order, says the chronicle, that the recruits might learn not to be afraid of their guns.

The dead calm continued.  “We were all very tired,” says the chaplain, “and I above all, with praying to God for a fair wind.  To-day, at about two in the afternoon, He took pity on us, and sent us a breeze.”  Before night they saw land,—­the faint line of forest, traced along the watery horizon, that marked the coast of Florida.  But where in all this vast monotony was the lurking-place of the French?  Menendez anchored, and sent fifty men ashore, who presently found a band of Indians in the woods, and gained from them the needed information.  He stood northward, till, on the afternoon of Tuesday, the fourth of September, he descried four ships anchored near the mouth of a river.  It was the river St. John’s, and the ships were four of Ribaut’s squadron.  The prey was in sight.  The Spaniards prepared for battle, and bore down upon the Lutherans; for, with them, all reformers alike were branded with the name of the arch-heretic.  Slowly, before the faint breeze, the ships glided on their way; but while, excited and impatient, the fierce crews watched the decreasing space, and while they were still three leagues from their prize, the air ceased to stir, the sails flapped against the mast, a black cloud with thunder rose above the coast, and the warm rain of the South descended on the breathless sea.  It was dark before the wind moved again, and the ships resumed their course.  At half past eleven they reached the French.  The San Pelayo slowly moved to windward of Ribaut’s flag-ship, the Trinity, and anchored very near her.  The other ships took similar stations.  While these preparations were making, a work of two hours, the men labored in silence, and the French, thronging their gangways, looked on in equal silence.  “Never, since I came into the world,” writes the chaplain, “did I know such a stillness.”