A severe illness again seized Laudonniere, and confined him to his bed.
Improving their advantage, the malcontents gained over nearly all the
best soldiers in the fort. The ringleader was one Fourneaux, a man of
good birth, but whom Le Moyne calls an avaricious hypocrite. He drew up
a paper, to which sixty-six names were signed. La Caille boldly opposed
the conspirators, and they resolved to kill him. His room-mate, Le
Moyne, who had also refused to sign, received a hint of the design from
a friend; upon which he warned La Caille, who escaped to the woods. It
was late in the night. Fourneaux, with twenty men armed to the teeth,
knocked fiercely at the commandant's door. Forcing an entrance, they
wounded a gentleman who opposed them, and crowded around the sick man's
bed. Fourneaux, armed with steel cap and cuirass, held his arquebuse to
Laudonniere's throat, and demanded leave to go on a cruise among the
Spanish islands. The latter kept his presence of mind, and remonstrated
with some firmness; on which, with oaths and menaces, they dragged him
from his bed, put him in fetters, carried him out to the gate of the
fort, placed him in a boat, and rowed him to the ship anchored in the
river.
Two other gangs at the same time visited Ottigny and Arlac, whom they
disarmed, and ordered to keep their rooms till the night following, on
pain of death.
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