A
peasant woman attended him, who was brought over, he says, to nurse the
sick and take charge of the poultry, and of whom Le Moyne also speaks as
a servant, but who had been made the occasion of additional charges
against him, most offensive to the austere Admiral.
Stores were landed, tents were pitched, women and children were sent on
shore, feathered Indians mingled in the throng, and the borders of the
River of May swarmed with busy life. "But, lo, how oftentimes misfortune
doth search and pursue us, even then when we thinke to be at rest!"
exclaims the unhappy Laudonniere. Amidst the light and cheer of
renovated hope, a cloud of blackest omen was gathering in the east.
At half-past eleven on the night of Tuesday, the fourth of September,
the crew of Ribaut's flag-ship, anchored on the still sea outside the
bar, saw a huge hulk, grim with the throats of cannon, drifting towards
them through the gloom; and from its stern rolled on the sluggish air
the portentous banner of Spain.
CHAPTER VII.
1565.
MENENDEZ.
The monk, the inquisitor, and the Jesuit were lords of Spain,--
sovereigns of her sovereign, for they had formed the dark and narrow
mind of that tyrannical recluse. They had formed the minds of her
people, quenched in blood every spark of rising heresy, and given over a
noble nation to a bigotry blind and inexorable as the doom of fate.
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