Vasseur, intent and eager, strove to follow his meaning; and no sooner did he hear of these Appalachian treasures than he promised to join Outina in war against the two potentates of the mountains.  Hereupon the sagacious Mollua, well pleased, promised that each of Outina’s vassal chiefs should requite their French allies with a heap of gold and silver two feet high.  Thus, while Laudonniere stood pledged to Satouriona, Vasseur made alliance with his mortal enemy.

Returning, he was met, near the fort, by one of Satouriona’s chiefs, who questioned him touching his dealings with the Thimagoa.  Vasseur replied, that he had set upon and routed them with incredible slaughter.  But as the chief, seeming as yet unsatisfied, continued his inquiries, the sergeant, Francis la Caille, drew his sword, and, like Falstaff before him, re-enacted his deeds of valor, pursuing and thrusting at the imaginary Thimagoa as they fled before his fury.  Whereat the chief, at length convinced, led the party to his lodge, and entertained them with a certain savory decoction with which the Indians were wont to regale those whom they delighted to honor.

Elate at the promise of a French alliance, Satouriona had summoned his vassal chiefs to war.  From the St. Mary’s and the Satilla and the distant Altamaha, from every quarter of his woodland realm, they had mustered at his call.  By the margin of the St. John’s, the forest was alive with their bivouacs.  Ten chiefs were here, and some five hundred men.  And now, when all was ready, Satouriona reminded Laudonniere of his promise, and claimed its fulfilment; but the latter gave evasive answers and a virtual refusal.  Stifling his rage, the chief prepared to go without him.

Near the bank of the river, a fire was kindled, and two large vessels of water placed beside it.  Here Satouriona took his stand.  His chiefs crouched on the grass around him, and the savage visages of his five hundred warriors filled the outer circle, their long hair garnished with feathers, or covered with the heads and skins of wolves, panthers, bears, or eagles.  Satouriona, looking towards the country of his enemy, distorted his features to a wild expression of rage and hate; then muttered to himself; then howled an invocation to his god, the sun; then besprinkled the assembly with water from one of the vessels, and, turning the other upon the fire, suddenly quenched it.  “So,” he cried, “may the blood of our enemies be poured out, and their lives extinguished!” and the concourse gave forth an explosion of responsive yells, till the shores resounded with the wolfish din.

The rites over, they set forth, and in a few days returned exulting with thirteen prisoners and a number of scalps.  The latter were hung on a pole before the royal lodge, and when night came, it brought with it a pandemonium of dancing and whooping, drumming and feasting.