n anchored since the
arrival of his father's squadron.

While this was passing, the wretched fugitives were flying from the
scene of massacre through a tempest, of whose pertinacious violence all
the narratives speak with wonder. Exhausted, starved, half-clothed,--for
most of them had escaped in their shirts,--they pushed their toilsome
way amid the ceaseless howl of the elements. A few sought refuge in
Indian villages; but these, it is said, were afterwards killed by the
Spaniards. The greater number attempted to reach the vessels at the
mouth of the river. Of the latter was Le Moyne, who, despite his former
failure, was toiling through the maze of tangled forests when he met a
Belgian soldier with the woman described as Laudonniere's maid-servant,
the latter wounded in the breast, and, urging their flight towards the
vessels, they fell in with other fugitives, among them Laudonniere
himself. As they struggled through the salt-marsh, the rank sedge cut
their naked limbs, and the tide rose to their waists. Presently they
descried others, toiling like themselves through the matted vegetation,
and recognized Challeux and his companions, also in quest of the
vessels. The old man still, as he tells us, held fast to his chisel,
which had done good service in cutting poles to aid the party to cross
the deep creeks that channelled the morass. The united band, twenty-six
in all, were relieved at length by the sight of a moving sail. It was
the vessel of Captain Mallard, who, informed of the massacre, was
standing along-shore in the hope of picking up some of the fugitives. He
saw their signals, and sent boats to their rescue; but such was their
exhaustion, that, had not the sailors, wading to their armpits among the
rushes, borne them out on their shoulders, few could have escaped.
Laudonniere was so feeble that nothing but the support of a soldier, who
held him upright in his arms, had saved him from drowning in the marsh.

Gaining the friendly decks, the fugitives counselled together. One and
all, they sickened for the sight of France.

After waiting a few days, and saving a few more stragglers from the
marsh, they prepared to sail. Young Ribaut, though ignorant of his
father's fate, assented with something more than willingness; indeed,
his behavior throughout had been stamped with weakness and poltroonery.
On the twenty-fifth of September, they put to sea in two vessels; and,
after a voyage whose privations were fatal to