In the morning Satouriona’s runners had scoured the country, and the woods were full of Indians.  The white men landed in military order, and in token of friendliness laid aside their arquebuses, and the Indians came in without their bows and arrows.  Satouriona met Gourgues with every sign of friendliness, and seated him at his side upon a wooden stool covered with the gray “Spanish moss” that curtained all the trees.  In the clearing the chiefs and warriors stood or sat around them, ring within ring of plumed crests fierce faces and watchful eyes.  Satouriona described the cruelty of the Spaniards, their abuse of the Indians and the miseries of their rule, saying finally,

“A French boy fled to us after the fort was taken, and we adopted him.  The Spaniards wished to get him to kill him, but we would not give him up, for we love the French.”  He waved his hand, and from the woods at one side came, in full Indian costume, bronzed and athletic, Pierre Debre.

Greatly as he was surprised and delighted, Gourgues dared not show it too plainly, and Pierre had grown almost as self-contained as a veteran of twice his years.  When the French commander suggested fighting the Spaniards Satouriona leaped for joy.  He and his warriors asked only to be allowed to join in that foray.

“How soon?” asked Gourgues.  Satouriona could have his people ready in three days.

“Be secret,” the Gascon cautioned, “for the enemy must not feel the wind of the blow.”  Satouriona assured him that there was no need of that warning, for the Indians hated the Spaniards worse than the French did.

“Pierre,” said Gourgues, when he had the lad safe on board ship, “they said you were killed.”

“I stayed alive to fight Spaniards,” said the boy with a flash of the eye. “’Sieur Dominic, there are four hundred of them behind their walls, where they rebuilt our fort.  I have hidden in the trees and counted.  But you can trust Satouriona.  The Spaniards have stolen women, enslaved and tortured men, and killed children, and the tribe is mad with hate.”

Twenty sailors were left to guard the ships, Gourgues with a hundred and sixty Frenchmen took up their march along the seashore; their Indian allies slipped around through the forest.  With the French went Olotoraca, the nephew of the chief, a young brave of distinguished reputation, a French pike in his hand.  The French met their allies not far from the fort, and pounced upon the garrison just as it finished dinner, Olotoraca being the first man up the glacis and over the unfinished moat.  The fort across the river began to cannonade the attacking party, who turned four captured guns upon them, and then crossed, the French in a large boat which had been brought up the river, the Indians swimming.  Not one Spaniard escaped.  Fifteen were kept alive, to be hanged on the very trees from which Menendez had hanged his French captives, and over them was set an inscription burned with a hot poker on a pine board: