In Search of Mademoiselle

When I went under the half deck and opened the hatch to the quarters of the men, a cloud of blue smoke rolled out and I thought there must be a fire. There, upon a sea-chest, sitting most disconsolate, was my Englishman, Job Goddard. Around him in a half-moon was a crowd of the French bowmen and arquebusiers holding their sides and laughing at his plight. For while I looked he put his hand upon his stomach, retching and groaning like a person ill unto death.

“Why, how now, Job Goddard,” I laughed – for the ship was pitching – “is this your maiden voyage?”

But Goddard only bent the further forward, and the bowmen laughed the more. At this I feared ’twas serious, for Goddard was no man to be laughed at by any Frenchman.

I went over to him and clapped my hand upon his shoulder. “Chut, man,” said I half angrily, “what is it? Speak up!”

And with that he turned toward me the sorriest look and wryest face I have ever beheld upon mortal man. But he made no sign that he heard me or indeed that he was aware of my presence, only gripping his middle and groaning the louder. I made a shrewd guess that ’twas no vital sickness that had come upon him, and remembering how I had once before seen a man cured of some such an ailment, without further ado I fetched him a resounding whack upon the thigh.

I had not counted upon so speedy a recovery, for I had scarce time to spring behind him when he flew into the air and in the very thick of the Frenchmen – striking this way and that with feet and hands, until two of the arquebusiers measured their length upon the floor and the rest of them were flying in all directions before the fury of his onslaught. Unable longer to restrain myself I burst into a fit of laughter, which even my sense of authority could not withhold.

It was not until then that Goddard espied me. His countenance fell and he looked around him as though to gather his wits. But in a moment he walked over to his sea-chest, and I saw that he had been sucking upon one of these tobacco reeds which Vasseur had described to me. He looked at the packet and bowl a moment stupidly and then, with a sudden motion, dashed them upon the deck, where they broke into a hundred pieces.

Then and not until then would he speak.

“Blow me, sir,” said he, “if I bean’t sick at me stomick.” The expression of his face at this unaccustomed sensation was so comical that I could not blame the Frenchmen, and I laughed as loud as the best of them.

The next morning when within but two leagues of San Augustin the wind fell again to the same dead, sluggish calm of the day before, and we could make no progress; but plain to the naked eye behind the sand spit at the entrance showed the vessels of the Spaniards, where they had anchored to receive us.

The weather by now was growing thicker and thicker, and in an hour we saw that a squall would strike us. We had barely time to get our canvas in when down it came with great force and away we rode trying to bear up against it. Close as we hauled we could not get to the harbor and give battle; and so the Admiral, seeing that some of the smaller vessels would be blown ashore, signaled for all to follow, and under storm-sails stood off until the tempest should abate. Had we held on so close to that lee shore some of our vessels must surely have fallen into the hands of the Spaniards.

But the storm showed no sign of abating. Before noon the wind increased to such a force that the vessels could wear but their very lightest canvas; and heavy gusts of wind came now and then, in which those sails cracked and strained, the ship groaning like a thing in pain.

Bourdelais stood upon the poop glancing first at the slatting canvas and then at the Spanish vessels within the harbor, growing every moment more indistinct in the wrack and mist under our lee. De Brésac, who had stood fingering his sword-hilt impatiently, awaiting the beginning of the battle, had railed so openly at the Admiral’s decision to put to sea, that he had been sent below, like a sulky boy, to recover his usual tepor. Salvation Smith had stopped reading to Job Goddard from the “Martyrs,” – his accustomed relish before going into battle – and sat moody and dispirited in the lee of the barge in the waist, while his companion swore softly to himself.

I doubted not, it was a wise decision to put to sea, but to me it seemed a bitter thing to be forced to turn aside from a battle which meant so much to us all. If Ribault himself had any doubts as to his decision, he did not show them; for he paced up and down the quarter-deck, his calm demeanor setting a worthy example in forbearance to the younger and less moderate among us, who were anxious to be up and at our enemies, and found small pleasure in a sailing drill upon the ocean when other and more troublous business might have been doing.

The next day the wind went down. From green the sea had turned to gray. But the waves did not break in masses of foam. They boiled along, churning and seething as though disturbed by some mighty current beneath. Only the crest, in a wall of amber thin as parchment, was tossed up to curl and break in a jet of spray; and broken lines of gray swayed and rolled athwart the trough where the foam had been. The clouds from brown had turned to a heavy blue, the color of a Spanish blade. They hung low and menacing, while great fingers of them curled and twisted like furies, or shot out in long lines here and there to be torn to pieces and carried in shreds down to leeward.

For six days this weather continued. There was no great danger to the ships so long as it blew no harder. The Admiral was running around this mounthsoun, as he called it, which came up from the south. Could we but go through it, all danger would be past; but in this sea it would have been destruction to some of his fleet to have hazarded an approach to San Augustin again. We could get no sight of clear sky; but by the drift and speed I made it that we had gone three hundred leagues or so to the north and into the Mares’ sea, as it has come to be called.

Here we saw no longer the great rollers of the coast, for the wind now blew fitfully from the east and the waves ran first in one way and then in another. The sky lightened a little and the Admiral, thinking the storm had gone out to sea, shifted his helm and put about again.

The Sieur de la Notte, who was chafing under this delay, could hardly restrain his great anxiety. The Spaniards had seen us struggling in the face of the storm and might conceive the bold project to attack Fort Caroline before the ships returned. The very thought of it filled my heart with dread, and I could not forbear speaking of it to Ribault.

That was the only time I had ever seen him angry. He flashed upon me, his features distorted with rage. He had seized a pin from the rail and I thought for the moment he would strike me with it.

“You Anglais are always meddling,” he shouted. “What have you to do with this command?”

But I did not move. I looked at him squarely and some one took the pin away from him; then he went below.

It was plain to see, none the less, that the situation of the French and the Spanish had changed. Here were we, many leagues upon the ocean, at the mercy of the winds and seas; while the Spaniards, our deadliest enemies, outnumbering us two to one, were ashore, and but two days’ march from all we had in New France – all the most of us had anywhere upon the face of the earth!

Would we never come to land again? And, Mademoiselle!

I dared not think!

CHAPTER X.

THE HERICANO

We were sailing toward the shore again, but the wind had gone down and the Trinity moved sluggishly enough through the heavy swells, making scarce a league an hour. But this was a humor of the elements and meant nothing – or everything. In those latitudes a ship-master should ever be in a plague and torment.

It was three weeks that we had been upon the sea, when one night, at the beginning of October, four of the ships still being in company, there broke a storm, the equal of which I have never had the ill-fortune to behold. And it was afterwards told me by Indians of Emola that never had there been known such a tempest upon that coast.

The Lieutenant Bachasse had the watch on deck. I was standing by his side. Suddenly far down on the starboard quarter we heard a roaring like that of the surf upon the shore; only it was a hundred times greater and had in it something more ominous and terrible. The sky was black as soot in that direction, and though we peered through the darkness we could see nothing there. More and more distinct it grew, and then we could make out a line of white growing more plain with each second. Bachasse was giving some hoarse orders to have the sails and yards lowered, when the Admiral rushed from his cabin clad only in shirt and breeches.

“Dieu nous bénisse!” he shouted. “It is the hericano! Set her stern to it, mes gars, for your lives!”

I knew what he meant and rushing to the starboard tiller rope, caught the slack from the hand of the man who stood there and ran it through the pulley with all the strength and quickness I could muster. I jammed it far over and hung on like death.

Amid the deafening noise, with the ripping and slatting of the sails, the threshing of the ropes and pollys, and the roaring of the sea above it all, I could not think. I hung blindly to the tackle, loosing and easing her as she felt the helm. I saw the main topsail which had been reefed down, torn out of its ropes and go flying entire like a great bird in the air, where it vanished in the wrack and mist. Then the faces blew out of the lanthorns, hitting and cutting us like needles, and we were in darkness. I could dimly make out the figures of the Admiral, Bourdelais, and several others as they hung to the tackling at the mizzen. I saw them put hand to mouth as though shouting, but could hear no sound other than the thundering of wind and sea.

The first shock had caught the ship fairly upon her stern. Her nose had gone well down into the smother, for I felt the poop rise high in the air as though she were going all way over. Then she fell back into the depths with a blow that seemed to shake loose every joint and elbow in her hull. A wave many feet high dashed over, washing forward into the waist the man at my side and carrying overboard everything that was not lashed to the rail or mast. One of the lanthorns came down with a crash, just missing me where I swung to the tiller-polly, and swept down the slant of the after-castle, carrying away the hand-rail of the mounting ladder and vanishing into the quarter-deck.

The ship swayed and yawed frightfully from this side to that. It was a moment fraught with dreadful anxiety. The great tiller was smashing into the bulwarks and pounding back against the tackle, and it seemed for a moment as though the ship would fall into the trough. With great difficulty I reached the larboard tackle and hand over hand gathered the slack of it in until both gearings pulled alternately so that she seemed to be going aright. These tackles I passed through a ring-bolt to ease the strain, which pulled me this way and that like a rope yarn. It was desperate work keeping the feet; for with the great seas coming aboard over the quarter and the swaying of the top hamper from side to side I should have been thrown overboard a dozen times but for the gripe upon the tiller tackle. From the trough, the ship with a sickening motion rose high into the air as though shot from a saker; and then the deck fell away under the feet as she was thrust forward by the mighty rush of wind and wave behind her. Those great leaps were twice the length of the Trinity herself, for we could not have been going at a less rate than fifteen leagues an hour. Before long there was a great crash up aloft and the fore topmast was carried away, bringing down the fore and main top gallant yards. There came a pounding that jarred the ship grievously, but by God’s Providence the wreckage tore away and went by the board.

And yet it was most wonderful! I strained and sweated at the tiller, all hot with the work, though the spray was cutting my face like hail and I could feel the sting of the rain-drops even through my doublet. We were going to the westward now – to Fort Caroline perhaps, and I cared not how hard it blew. The spirit of the storm entered into me and I was drunk – drunk with the speed and motion, and mad with the struggle. The strain upon endurance was great; but there came a feeling of the glory of it, and as I fought on I prayed that no one might reach me. I set my teeth till my jaws throbbed and throbbed again, while my eyes watched the glow of the mass of foam forward as the water dashed up and over the bows, at times completely hiding the forward part of the ship.

I do not know how long I struggled there alone. It may have been ten minutes – it may have been an hour. But by and by I made out several figures crawling along the larboard bulwarks, seizing hold upon any rigging that came within their reach. They were the Admiral, Job Goddard and one other. When they could stand upright, Goddard and a seaman took hold upon the tackles, thus relieving me of a part of the strain. Then, in a while, Bachasse came up from below, saying that the ship was taking water both forward and aft and was creaking piteously.

Matters were bad enough, for we could not be far from the coast. Unless the wind veered to the north, nothing could save us from the breakers. The topsails had been blown to ribbons and the seas would have set us on our beam ends or the wind would have overset us completely had we tried to put the ship on the wind. And so we flew on, the Trinity leaping every moment nearer to her death, the waves dashing over and around her, sure of their prey.

Goddard swinging to his tackle leaned over till his mouth was next my ear shouting,

“Tis a fine speed for enterin’ Paradise, Master Sydney!”

All the night long we stood there, having now and then a relief of four men upon the tackles, the officers for the most part moving at their places of duty and saying what they could of good cheer to the men. The Sieur de la Notte came up toward dawn and asked Captain Bourdelais what the chances were. He being a person of few words replied shortly, “The ship will be upon the beach in three hours.”

Never had I seen the ocean wear so frightful a mien as when the long night came at last to an end. There was a gray waste about us and one could see no color anywhere; the ocean was like the dead ashes of a fire. At night we had not been able to see; we could only feel the great motion, and accustom ourselves. But by light of day the Trinity seemed but a speck upon those waves. At one moment, high as our top-hamper was, upon all sides we could see nothing but great walls of water, tumbling down upon us; the next we would look over abysses which were bottomless, out across a waste of foam which seemed to mingle and war with the cloud flakes that fell down upon it.

Among the soldiers there was great fear; for they had no stomach for such business as this. Even the seamen, many of them hardy in service, had lost their wits completely. Once when a wave had come aboard an old boatswain dashed terror-stricken into the half-deck and fore-castle shouting,

“The cabin is stove in, – we are sinking!” and three arquebusiers crazy with fear jumped overboard. One of the fine gentry of the cabin, with a satin coat, came running wild-eyed from below and falling upon his knees threw his hands in the air raving that should he reach land he would be no more a Lutheran, but a good Catholic, as he always was.

Providence intervened, for a sea struck him fairly in the face and he, having no hold – by reason of his hands being up – was overset backwards and vanished with a shriek. Salvation Smith disappeared, and came upon deck again dressed in a suit of black which he had taken from some half-dead gentleman in the cabin, “to go before the Holy Trinity in a fitting manner,” as he solemnly said. Another seaman, getting most drunk upon eau de vie ran amuck with a pike, maiming and hurting several.

It was about two hours of the morning watch when the waves seemed to grow suddenly less in length; and though the wind still roared as fiercely as ever, and the foam flew by us in scattering flakes or lashed furiously against the masts and shrouds, it was plain to be seen we were coming into the shallows. The Trinity moved more steadily, and that showed the better the great speed at which we were making for the beach. The wrack and the spume hid everything ahead, but I thought in a moment I could mark a white jet here and there which showed where the breakers were. Bourdelais saw them too, for he rushed to the tiller-tackles. The Admiral stood at the break of the poop, calm and quiet as though at a sailing drill, ready to set the bows straight for the beach when the end was near. The tackle crew were straining at the tiller watching the yawing of the ship and the motions of the hands of Bourdelais as he gave the course.

Suddenly out of the mist ahead I saw a line of white, leaping and writhing as far as the eye could reach to starboard and larboard; and then another beyond it, rolling onward. We came up to them and were soon in the midst of the seething, churning mass of white as the Trinity went pounding over the outer bar. She hung there a moment, reluctant; and then dashed forward again like a poor desperate creature hunted by the hounds, with a great straining leap. Everything was white about us now, and we had barely time to note the yellow strip of the beach under the bows, when with pitiful tremble and a quiver that went through her, bow and stern, the poor ship took her death blow with a dreadful crash and brought up hard and fast upon the sands.

The white tongues of surf licked her sides greedily, and sea after sea made clean breaches over bows and waist as though impatient to engulf her. So fairly and fast had we struck that the waves which followed us did not at first swing her broadside to the beach. But at last the drag of the wreck of the spars to larboard, added to the stress of the wind, pulled her around and we swung high up completely wrecked.

We were in bad case. Now we could plainly see the line of the beach with its backing of brown sand grasses and here and there a patch of dark where the gnarled firs and bay trees grew sparsely in the dunes.

The wrack and spray were flying thick, and the great waves behind drove completely over the vessel, wedging her farther up and making her destruction more certain. Yet one thing we noted. There were no rocks or reefs; only the long line of gently shelving beach. It seemed that with care we might all be saved; but there was not a moment to be lost. Bachasse went below again, with a carpenter, and found the hold turned into a small sea, which had flowed over the provision lockers and buried them under six feet of water. The surges were washing this way and that and seemed like to rend the timbers apart. Already a sea, larger than the others, had torn off one of the quarter galleries, and this wreckage had floated up on the beach, where it lay in the drift of the spent sea.

No boats could swim in that surf. So a most fearless young Frenchman, called Brunel, sprang into the waves with a rope about his body and struck out for the shore. It was not far to the shallows, and but for the anger of the waves it would have been an easy passage. We watched the swimmer borne along; now he was carried ahead shoreward in the very cap of a wave, and then he was swept back in the hollow toward the ship. It was a fine struggle. Twice he disappeared, and we thought he must have gone; but in a moment a great wave took him and bore him well onward in its topping of foam. Then he was up to his shoulders in the brine, fighting desperately for a foothold. Soon we saw him rise and work his way to the dry beach, where he fell and lay exhausted.

But after a little space he rose, waving his hands, and ropes were attached to his line. These Brunel hauled ashore and made fast to trees among the sand hills. Over these other men went, hand over hand; and soon two pollys with their tackling were traveling back and forth carrying the company ashore, many of them bearing their armor and accoutrements.

The work had been done none too speedily. A dozen or so of the company remained on the ship when we heard below decks the creaking of the timbers as the bolts pulled out and split them apart. Captain Bourdelais now urged the Admiral to go ashore; he would not, saying that none should leave after him, – a matter which Bourdelais and Bachasse disputed. There they stood with their hands on their hearts, all three bowing to one another as though at some fine levee of the Court. I had no humor for this business, for ’twas no place for foot-scraping. I was minded to get ashore without further ado, and so sprang to the tackle, which I hitched about my body. I had no more than done so when there was a great crashing and the deck suddenly fell away under my feet, throwing me into the sea.

CHAPTER XI.

WHAT BEFELL US UPON THE SAND-SPIT

Down I went, the water roaring about my ears and my body pulled this way and that by the undertow which swept me fiercely up and down. I opened my eyes, but the surf was full of foam and sand, so I closed them. I felt that I was being borne out to sea, and scarce had the mind to continue the struggle. Then came a sudden wrench. For a moment I thought I must have been crushed among the timbers, and to this day have often wondered that it was not so. But the strain was steady and then relaxed and I remembered the rope which I had put about me and knew it was the taughtening of the tackle about my shoulders. As my body touched the sandy bottom, with a mighty effort and springing upward I reached the surface, bewildered and all but exhausted. About, in all directions, were tossing pieces of the wreckage. I reached a spar with difficulty and to it clung, warding off meanwhile as best possible the planks and gratings which were dashing all around. I saw five or six men floating near and among them to my great joy marked the figure of the Admiral, clinging to a spar. He saw me at the same moment and feebly raised a hand in acknowledgment. Fearing he might lose his hold, and watching my chance, I swam to him and set him astride the yard. He seemed to have no will or power of his own and I thought he must have been badly injured.

“Are you much hurt, monsieur?” I asked him while I struggled to raise him. He made no great effort to aid me and would have toppled over again had I not held him firmly.

“I do not know, my friend,” he replied, “and I care not.”

Then I discovered there was a cut upon the back of his head, which was bleeding freely, dyeing his linen and doublet a sombre hue and marking in greater contrast the pallor of his face.

“Be of good cheer,” I said as cheerfully as I might, “we will be ashore in a moment, sir.” By the tackle about me, we were presently hauled through the surf and reached the shallows, where a dozen arms plucked us from our hazardous hold and landed us high upon the beach.

The perils of the last two days, ending in the position into which we were thrown, had taken my thoughts from the desperate fear at my heart. Until then – until we were surely wrecked and saw all destroyed before our eyes, we had hoped at least to get back to Fort Caroline before the Spaniards could attack. I made no doubt they would do that at the earliest moment if indeed they had not done so already.

My God! For the first time the horrible chances came upon and overwhelmed me. Wrecked and ruined upon an unknown and barren coast with the Indians on one side and the Spaniards perhaps barring our way to Fort Caroline and Mademoiselle! I was weak and could not bear to think more. The horror of it overcame me! I rose to my feet and strode up the beach like one distraught, breasting the flying sand and peering fruitlessly through the mist, vainly searching for some familiar mark to judge of our whereabouts. The motion of struggling against the wind seemed to lessen the dreadful ferment of mind; and bare-handed and worn as I was, no wish remained except only to press onward to Mademoiselle, or learn that she was safe. Once above the roaring of the storm I heard a sound like the cry of a woman and, with heart a-leap started running with all my might. But it was only some shrill creature which swirled near on the wind, uttering its storm-cry. On I struggled, heat and fever making riot of thought, until I fell again exhausted to the beach. I remember closing my eyes, but the eyeballs swam in a red mist and burned so that I opened them again. Then I seemed to sleep and dream. I saw dimly a woman seated at a table in a room. Back of her and around her were many men in armor, and their hands and faces were streaked with the red. It was Mademoiselle! By her side, leaning forward toward her, was a man, his eyes swimming as he gazed and his white teeth gleaming hatefully through his beard. He had a mug upraised, from which the liquor was spilling about as he pledged her, laughing coarsely the while. I could hear him too; for there was a gruesome reality about it. The others watched amused. He reached toward her, and I saw her shrink to a corner, away. He came again. She took a dagger from her bosom. Then drew herself up cold, white, and set, the weapon in both hands at her heart. No one moved. They stood, those men in armor, their hands raised, like statues. There was silence, deadly and oppressive; and I was dumb too and could make no sound. Then everything grew red again and I saw no more. In my agony I dug my nails deep into the sand and I cried aloud, calling to God. It was not so! It could not be so! I was mad! Yes, yes, – I knew that I was mad, and that comforted me.