The rites over, they set forth, and in a few days returned exulting with
thirteen prisoners and a number of scalps. The latter were hung on a
pole before the royal lodge, and when night came, it brought with it a
pandemonium of dancing and whooping, drumming and feasting.

A notable scheme entered the brain of Laudonniere. Resolved, cost what
it might, to make a friend of Outina, he conceived it a stroke of policy
to send back to him two of the prisoners. In the morning he sent a
soldier to Satouriona to demand them. The astonished chief gave a flat
refusal, adding that he owed the French no favors, for they had
shamefully broken faith with him. On this, Laudonniere, at the head of
twenty soldiers, proceeded to the Indian town, placed a guard at the
opening of the great lodge, entered with his arquebusiers, and seated
himself without ceremony in the highest place. Here, to show his
displeasure, he remained in silence for a half-hour. At length he spoke,
renewing his demand. For some moments Satouriona made no reply, then
coldly observed that the sight of so many armed men had frightened the
prisoners away. Laudonniere grew peremptory, when the chiefs son,
Athore, went out, and presently returned with the two Indians, whom the
French led back to Fort Caroline.

Satouriona dissembled, professed good-will, and sent presents to the
fort; but the outrage rankled in his savage breast, and he never forgave
it.

Captain Vasseur, with Arlac, the ensign, a sergeant, and ten soldiers,
embarked to bear the ill-gotten gift to Outina. Arrived, they were
showered with thanks by that grateful potentate, who, hastening to avail
himself of his new alliance, invited them to join in a raid against his
neighbor, Potanou. To this end, Arlac and five soldiers remained, while
Vasseur with the rest descended to Fort Caroline.

The warriors were mustered, the dances were danced, and the songs were
sung. Then the wild cohort took up its march. The wilderness through
which they passed holds its distinctive features to this day,--the shady
desert of the pine-barrens, where many a wanderer has miserably died,
with haggard eye seeking in vain for clue or guidance in the pitiless,
inexorable monotony. Yet the waste has its oases, the "hummocks," where
the live-oaks are hung with long festoons of grape-vines,--where the air
is sweet with woodland odors, and vocal with the song of birds. Then the
deep cypress-swamp, where dark trunks rise like the