Council-chamber, forum, banquet-hall, and dancing-hall all in one, the
spacious structure could hold half the population. Here the French made
their abode. With armor buckled, and arquebuse matches lighted, they
watched with anxious eyes the strange, dim scene, half revealed by the
daylight that streamed down through the hole at the apex of the roof.
Tall, dark forms stalked to and fro, with quivers at their backs, and
bows and arrows in their hands, while groups, crouched in the shadow
beyond, eyed the hated guests with inscrutable visages, and malignant,
sidelong eyes. Corn came in slowly, but warriors mustered fast. The
village without was full of them. The French officers grew anxious, and
urged the chiefs to greater alacrity in collecting the promised ransom.
The answer boded no good: "Our women are afraid when they see the
matches of your guns burning. Put them out, and they will bring the corn
faster."
Outina was nowhere to be seen. At length they learned that he was in one
of the small huts adjacent. Several of the officers went to him,
complaining of the slow payment of his ransom. The kindness of his
captors at Fort Caroline seemed to have won his heart. He replied, that
such was the rage of his subjects that he could no longer control them;
that the French were in danger; and that he had seen arrows stuck in the
ground by the side of the path, in token that war was declared.
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