mplete their defences, instead of waiting for them to
collect their full force and come and attack him, cooped {91} up on the
St. John's? Such bold moves make the fame of commanders when they
succeed, and when they fail are called criminal folly.

Unhappily, Ribaut neglected to consider the weather. It was the middle
of September, a season subject to terrific gales. Making all speed, he
sailed away with every available man, leaving Laudonniere, sick himself,
to hold dismantled Fort Caroline with disabled soldiers, cooks and
servants, women and children.

The French ships arrived safely off St. Augustine, just before the dawn,
and narrowly missed taking Menendez himself, who was on board a solitary
Spanish vessel which lay outside the bar. Just in the nick of time she
escaped within the harbor.

Before entering, the Frenchmen prudently reconnoitred the strange port.
Meanwhile the breeze freshened into a gale, and the gale rose to a
hurricane. The Frenchmen could no longer think of attacking, but only of
saving themselves from immediate wreck. Down the coast they worked their
way in a driving mist, struggling frantically to get out to sea, in the
teeth of the hurricane remorselessly pushing them toward the deadly reefs.

While his enemies were thus fighting for their {92} lives, Menendez
executed a counter-stroke to that of the French captain. Through the
raging gale, while every living thing cowered before driving sheets of
rain, this man of blood and iron marched away with five hundred picked
men. A French deserter from Fort Caroline and an Indian acted as guides,
and twenty axemen cleared the way through the dense under-growth.

What a march! Three days they tramped through a low, flooded country,
hacking their way through tangled thickets, wading waist-deep through mud
and water, for food and drink having only wet biscuit and rain-water,
with a sup of wine; for lodging only the oozy ground, with not so much as
a rag of canvas over their heads to shelter them from the torrents of
rain.

When they reached Fort Caroline their ammunition was wet and their guns
useless. They were half-famished and drenched to the skin. Still they
were willing to follow their leader in a rush on the fort, relying on
cold steel.

The night of September 19th the inmates of Fort Caroline listened to the
dismal moaning and creaking of the tall pines, the roar of the blast, and
the fitful torrents of rain beating on the cabin-r