erins from a projecting bastion. The
French took cover in the forest with which the hills below and behind
the fort were densely overgrown. Here, ensconced in the edge of the
woods, where, himself unseen, he could survey the whole extent of the
defences, Gourgues presently descried a strong party of Spaniards
issuing from their works, crossing the ditch, and advancing to
reconnoitre. On this, returning to his men, he sent Cazenove, with a
detachment, to station himself at a point well hidden by trees on the
flank of the Spaniards. The latter, with strange infatuation, continued
their advance. Gourgues and his followers pushed on through the thickets
to meet them. As the Spaniards reached the edge of the clearing, a
deadly fire blazed in their faces, and before the smoke cleared, the
French were among them, sword in hand. The survivors would have fled;
but Cazenove's detachment fell upon their rear, and all were killed or
taken.

When their comrades in the fort beheld their fate, a panic seized them.
Conscious of their own deeds, perpetrated on this very spot, they could
hope no mercy. Their terror multiplied immeasurably the numbers of their
enemy. They deserted the fort in a body, and fled into the woods most
remote from the French. But here a deadlier foe awaited them; for a host
of Indians leaped up from ambush. Then rose those hideous war-cries
which have curdled the boldest blood and blanched the manliest cheek.
Then the forest-warriors, with savage ecstasy, wreaked their long
arrears of vengeance. The French, too, hastened to the spot, and lent
their swords to the slaughter. A few prisoners were saved alive; the
rest were slain; and thus did the Spaniards make bloody atonement for
the butchery of Fort Caroline.

But Gourgues's vengeance was not yet appeased. Hard by the fort, the
trees were pointed out to him on which Menendez had hanged his captives,
and placed over them the inscription,--"Not as Frenchmen, but as
Lutherans."

Gourgues ordered the Spanish prisoners to be led thither.

"Did you think," he sternly said, as the pallid wretches stood ranged
before him, "that so vile a treachery, so detestable a cruelty, against
a King so potent and a nation so generous, would go unpunished? I, one
of the humblest gentlemen among my King's subjects, have charged myself
with avenging it. Even if the Most Christian and the Most Catholic Kings
had been enemies, at deadly war, such perfidy and extreme cruelty would
s