;
and when they made their wretched bivouac, their bed was the spongy
soil, and the exhaustless clouds their tent.

The night of Wednesday, the nineteenth, found their vanguard in a deep
forest of pines, less than a mile from Fort Caroline, and near the low
hills which extended in its rear, and formed a continuation of St.
John's Bluff. All around was one great morass. In pitchy darkness,
knee-deep in weeds and water, half starved, worn with toil and lack of
sleep, drenched to the skin, their provision spoiled, their ammunition
wet, their spirit chilled out of them, they stood in shivering groups,
cursing the enterprise and the author of it. Menendez heard an ensign
say aloud to his comrades,--

"This Asturian _corito_, who knows no more of war on shore than an ass,
has ruined us all. By ----, if my advice had been followed, he would have
had his deserts the day he set out on this cursed journey!"

The Adelantado pretended not to hear.

Two hours before dawn he called his officers about him. All night, he
said, he had been praying to God and the Virgin.

"Senores, what shall we resolve on? Our ammunition and provisions are
gone. Our case is desperate." And he urged a bold rush on the fort.

But men and officers alike were disheartened and disgusted. They
listened coldly and sullenly; many were for returning at every risk;
none were in a mood for fight. Menendez put forth all his eloquence,
till at length the dashed spirits of his followers were so far rekindled
that they consented to follow him.

All fell on their knees in the marsh; then, rising, they formed their
ranks and began to advance, guided by the renegade Frenchman, whose
hands, to make sure of him, were tied behind his back. Groping and
stumbling in the dark among trees, roots, and underbrush, buffeted by
wind and rain, and slashed in the face by the recoiling boughs which
they could not see, they soon lost their way, fell into confusion, and
came to a stand, in a mood more savagely desponding than before. But
soon a glimmer of returning day came to their aid, and showed them the
dusky sky, and the dark columns of the surrounding pines. Menendez
ordered the men forward on pain of death. They obeyed, and presently,
emerging from the forest, could dimly discern the ridge of a low hill,
behind which, the Frenchman told them, was the fort. Menendez, with a
few officers and men, cautiously mounted to the top. Beneath lay Fort
Caroline, three gunshots dista