Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

We have already seen that he reached his place of watch in safety. But here his good fortune failed him: his place of espionage was not one of concealment. In the wild orgies of their religion,--for they seem to have practised rites not dissimilar to, and not less violent and terrible than those of the British Druids,--the priests darted over the crouching spy. Detected in the very act, where he lay, "squat like a toad," the Iawas fell upon him with the sharp instruments of flint with which they had been lancing and lacerating their own bodies. With these they contrived, in spite of all his struggles and entreaties, to inflict upon him some very severe wounds. Their rage was unmeasured, and the will to slay him was not wanting. But Renaud was a fellow equally vigorous and active. He baffled their blows as well as he could, and at length breaking from their folds, he took fairly to his heels. Howling with rage and fury, they darted upon his track, their wild shrieks ringing through the wood like those of so many demons suffering in mortal agony. They cried to all whom they saw, to stay and slay the offender. Others joined in the chase, as they heard this summons. But fortune favored the fugitive. His terror added wings to his flight. He was not, it seems, destined to such a death as they designed him. He outran his pursuers, and, dodging those whom he accidentally encountered, he made his way into the thick of the area, where his comrades, half bewildered by the uproar, were breaking up the dance. He sank down in the midst of them, exhausted by loss of blood and fatigue, only a moment before the appearance of his pursuers.

The French instantly closed around their companion. They had not put aside their weapons, and they now prepared themselves to encounter the worst. The aspect of the danger was threatening in the last degree. The Iawas were boiling with sacred fury. They were the true rulers of their people. Their will was sovereign over the popular moods. They demanded, with violent outcry, the blood of the individual by whom their sacred retreats had been violated, and their shekinah polluted by vulgar and profane presence. They demanded the blood of _all_ the Frenchmen, as participating in the crime. They called upon Audusta to assert his own privileges and theirs. They appealed to the people in a style of phrenzied eloquence, the effects of which were soon visible in the inflamed features and wild action of the more youthful warriors. Already were these to be seen slapping their sides, tossing their hands in air, and, with loud shrieks, lashing themselves into a fury like that which enflamed their prophets. King Audusta looked confounded. The Frenchmen were his guests. He had invited them to partake of his hospitality, and to enjoy the rites of his religion. He was in some sort pledged for their safety, though one of them had violated the conditions of their coming. His own feelings revolted at giving any sanction for the assault, yet he appeared unable or unwilling to resist the clamors of the priesthood. But _he_ also demanded, though with evident reluctance, the blood of the offender. He was not violent, though urgent, in this demand. He showed indignation rather than hostility; and he gave Albert to understand that in no way could the people or the priesthood be appeased, unless by the sacrifice of the guilty person.

But Albert could not yield the victim. The French were prepared to perish to a man before complying with any such demand. They were firm. They fenced him in with their weapons, and declared their readiness to brave every peril ere they would abandon their comrade. This resolution was the more honorable, as Pierre Renaud was no favorite among them. Though seriously disquieted by the event, and apprehensive of the issue, Albert was man enough to second their spirit. Besides, Renaud had been his own emissary in the adventure which threatened to terminate so fatally. His denial was inferred from his deportment; and the clamor of the Indians was increased. The rage of the Iawas was renewed with the conviction that no redress was to be given them. Already had the young warriors of Audusta procured their weapons. More than an hundred of them surrounded our little band of Frenchmen, who were only thirteen in number. Bows were bent, lances were set in rest, javelins were seen lifted, and ready to be thrown; and the drum which had been just made to sound, in lively tones, for the dance, now gave forth the most dismal din, significant of massacre and war. Already were to be seen, in the hands of some more daring Indian than the rest, the heavy war-club, or the many-teethed macana, waving aloft and threatening momently to descend upon the victim; and nothing was wanting but a first blow to bring on a general massacre. Suddenly, at this perilous moment, the fiddle of Guernache was heard without; followed, in a moment after, by the appearance of the brave fellow himself. Darting in between the opposing ranks, attended by the faithful Monaletta, with a grand crash upon his instrument, now newly-strung, followed by a rapid gush of the merriest music, he took both parties by the happiest surprise, and instantly produced a revulsion of feeling among the savages as complete as it was sudden.

"Ami! ami! ami!" was the only cry from an hundred voices, at the reappearance of Guernache among them. They had acquired this friendly epithet among the first words which they had learned at their coming, from the French; and their affection for our fiddler had made its application to himself, in particular, a thing of general usage. He _was_ their friend. He had shown himself their friend, and they had a faith in _him_ which they accorded to no other of his people. The people were with him, and the priesthood not unfriendly. Time was gained by this diversion; and, in such an outbreak as that which has been described, time is all that is needful, perhaps, to stay the arm of slaughter. Guernache played out his tune, and cut a few pleasant antics, in which the now happy Monaletta, though of the blood royal, readily joined him. The musician had probably saved the party from massacre. The subsequent work of treaty and pacification was comparatively easy. Pierre Renaud was permitted to depart for the pinnace, under the immediate care of Guernache and Monaletta. The Iawas received some presents of gaudy costume, bells, and other gew-gaws, while a liberal gift of knives and beads gratified their warriors and their women. The old ties of friendship were happily reunited, and the calumet went round, from mouth to mouth, in token of restored confidence and renewed faith. Before nightfall, happily relieved from his apprehensions, Albert, with his detachment, was rapidly making his way with his pinnace, down the waters of the swiftly-rolling Edisto.

V.

THE LEGEND OF GUERNACHE.--Chap. III.

The Legend of Guernache is continued, showing how the Fortress of the
Huguenots was destroyed, and what happened thereafter to Guernache
the Musician.

The fidelity which Guernache had shown in the recent difficulty with the Indians, did not appear to lessen in any degree the unfavorable impressions which Capt. Albert had received of that worthy fellow. Indeed, the recent and remarkable service which he had rendered, by which, in all probability, the whole party had been preserved from massacre, rather increased, if any thing, the hostile temper of his superior. The evil spirit still raged within the bosom of Capt. Albert, utterly baffling a judgment at no period of particular excellence, and blinding every honorable sentiment which might have distinguished him under other influences. He was now doubly mortified, that he should be supposed to owe his present safety to the person he had wronged--a mortification which found due increase as he remembered how much greater had been the respect and deference of the savages for his drummer than for himself. This recollection was a perpetual goad to that working malice in his heart, which was already busied in devising schemes of revenge, which were to salve his hurts of pride and vanity, by the sufferings as well as humiliation of his subordinate. It will scarcely be believed that, when fairly out of sight of the village of Audusta, he rebuked Guernache sharply, for leaving the pinnace against his orders, and even spoke of punishing him for this disobedience.[12] But the murmurs of some of his officers, and, perhaps, a little lurking sentiment of shame in his own bosom, prevented him from attempting any such disgraceful proceeding. But the feeling of hostility only rankled the more because of its suppression, and he soon contrived to show Guernache and, indeed, everybody besides, that from that hour he was his most bitter and unforgiving enemy, with a little and malignant spirit, he employed various petty arts, which a superior of a base nature may readily command on all occasions, by which to make the poor fellow feel how completely he was at his mercy; and each day exposed him to some little snare, or some stern caprice, by which Guernache became involuntarily an offender. His tyrant subjected him to duties the most troublesome and humiliating, while denying, or stinting him of all those privileges which were yet commonly accorded to his comrades. But all this would have been as nothing to Guernache, if he had not been denied permission to visit, as before, the hamlet of Audusta, where his princess dwelt. On the miserable pretext that the priesthood might revenge upon him the misconduct of Renaud, Albert insisted upon his abstaining wholly from the Indian territories. But this pretence deceived nobody, and nobody less than Guernache. Little did the petty tyrant of Fort Charles imagine that the object of his malice enjoyed a peculiar source of consolation for all these privations. His comrades were his friends. They treated him with a warmth and kindness, studiously proportioned to the ill-treatment of his superior. They assisted him in the severer tasks which were allotted him to fulfil--gave him their company whenever this was possible, while he was engaged in the execution of his most cheerless duties, and soothed his sorrows by the expression of their almost unanimous sympathies. Nor did they always withhold their bitter denunciations of the miserable despotism under which he suffered, and which they feared. Dark hints of remedy were spoken, brows frowned at the mention of the wrongs of their companion, and the head shaken ominously, when words of threatening significance were uttered--appealed gratefully to certain bitter desires which had taken root in the mind of the victim. But these sympathies, though grateful, were of small amount in comparison with another source of consolation, which contributed to sustain Guernache in his tribulation. This was found in the secret companionship of his young and beautiful Indian wife. Denied to see him at the village of Audusta, the fond and fearless woman determined to seek him at all hazards in his own domain. She stole away secretly to the fortress of the Huguenots. Long and earnest was the watch which she maintained upon its portals, from the thickets of the neighboring wood. Here, vigilant as the sentinel that momently expects his foe, she harbored close, in waiting for the beloved one. Her quick instincts had already taught her the true cause of his denial, and of her disappointment; and her Indian lessons had made that concealment, which she now believed to be necessary to her purpose, a part of the habitual policy of her people. She showed herself to none of the people of the fortress. She suspected them all; she had no faith but in the single one. And he, at length, came forth, unaccompanied, in the prosecution of an occasional labor--that of cutting and procuring wood. She suffered him to make his way into the forests--to lose sight of the fortress, and, with a weary spirit and a wounded soul, to begin his lonely labors with the axe. Then did she steal behind him, and beside him; and when he moaned aloud--supposing that he had no auditor--how startling fell upon his ear the sweet, soft whisper of that precious voice which he had so lovingly learned to distinguish from all others. He turned with a gush of rapturous delight, and, weeping, she rushed into his arms, pouring forth, in a wild cry, upon his breast, the whole full volume of her warm, devoted heart!

[12] Charlevoix thus describes Captain Albert: "Le Commandant
de Charles-Fort étoit un homme de main, et qui ne manquoit pas
absolument de conduite, mais il étoit brutal jusqu'à la férocité, et
ne sçavoit pas meme garder les bienséances........ Il punissoit les
moindres fautes, and toujours avec excès, &c."--N. France, Liv. 1, p.
51.

That moment, in spite of all his fears, was amply compensative to Guernache for all his troubles. He forgot them all in the intensity of his new delights. And when Monaletta led him off from his tasks to the umbrageous retreat in the deeper woods where her nights had been recently passed,--when she conducted him to the spot where her own hands had built a mystic bower for her own shelter--when she declared her purpose still to occupy this retreat, in the solitude alone,--that she might be ever near him, to behold him at a distance, herself unseen, when he came forth accompanied by others--to join him, to feel his embrace, hear his words of love, and assist him in his labors when he came forth unattended--when, speaking and promising thus, she lay upon the poor fellow's bosom, looking up with tearful and bright eyes in his wan and apprehensive countenance--then it was that he could forget his tyrant--could lose his fears and sorrows in his love, and in the enjoyment of moments the most precious to his heart, forget all the accompanying influences which might endanger his safety.

But necessity arose sternly between the two, and pointed to the exactions of duty. The tasks of Guernache were to be completed. His axe was required to sound among the trees of the forest, and a certain number of pieces of timber were required by sunset at his hands. It was surprising as it was sweet to behold the Indian woman as she assisted him in his tasks. Her strength did not suffice for the severer toils of the wood-cutter, but she contrived a thousand modes for contributing to his performances. Love lightens every labor, and invents a thousand arts by which to do so. Monaletta anticipated the wants of Guernache. She removed the branches as he smote them, she threw the impediments from his way,--helped him to lift and turn the logs as each successive side was to be hewn. She brought him water, when he thirsted, from the spring. She spoke and sung to him in the most encouraging voice when he was weary. He was never weary when with her.

Guernache combatted her determination to remain in the neighborhood of the fortress; but his objections were feebly urged, and she soon overcame them. He had not the courage to insist upon his argument, as he had not the strength to resist the consolations which her presence brought him. She soon succeeded in assuring him that there was little or no danger of detection by their enemy. She laughed at the idea of the Frenchmen discovering her place of concealment, surprising her in her progress through the woods, or overtaking her in flight; and Guernache knew enough of Indian subtlety readily to believe that the white was no match for the dusky race in the exercise of all those arts which are taught by forest life. "But her loneliness and privation, exposed to the season's changes, and growing melancholy in the absence from old associates?" But how could she be lonely, was her argument, when near the spot where he dwelt--when she could see and hear and speak with him occasionally? She wished no other communion. As for the exposure of her present abode, was it greater than that to which the wandering life of the red-man subjects his people at all seasons? The Indian woman is quite as much at home in the forest as the Indian warrior. She acquires her resources of strength and dexterity in his company, and by the endurance of similar necessities and the employment of like exercises. She learns even in childhood to build her own green bower at night, to gather her own fuel, light her own fire, dress her own meat--nay, provide it; and, weaponed with bow, and javelin and arrow, bring down buck or doe bounding at full speed through the wildest forests. Her skill and spirit are only not equal to those of the master by whom she is taught, but she acquires his arts to a degree which makes her sometimes worthy to be lifted by the tribe from her own rank into his. Monaletta reminded Guernache of all these things. She had the most conclusive and convincing methods of argument. She reassured him on all his doubts, and, in truth, it was but too easy to do so. It was unhappy for them both, as we shall see hereafter, that the selfish passion of the poor musician too readily reconciled him to a self-devotion on the part of his wife, which subjected her to his own perils, and greatly tended to their increase. With the evil eye of Albert upon him, he should have known that safety was impossible for him in the event of error. And error was inevitable now, with the pleasant tempter so near his place of coventry. We must not wonder to discover now that Guernache seldom sleeps within the limits of the fortress. At midnight, when all is dark and quiet, he leaps over the walls, those nights excepted when it is his turn of duty to watch within. His secret is known to some of his comrades; but they are too entirely his friends to betray him to a despot who had, by this time, outraged the feelings of most of those who remained under his command. Guernache was now enabled to bear up more firmly than ever against the tyranny of Albert. His, indeed, were nights of happiness. How sweetly sped the weeks, in which, despite his persecutions, he felt that he enjoyed a life of luxurious pleasures, such as few enjoy in any situation. His were the honest excitements of a genuine passion, which, nourished by privation and solitude, and indulged in secresy, was of an intensity corresponding with the apparent denial, and the real embarrassments of such a condition. His pleasures were at once stolen and legitimate; the apprehension which attends their pursuit giving a wild zest to their enjoyment; though, in the case of Guernache, unlike that of most of those who indulge in stolen joys, they were honest, and left no cruel memories behind them.

It was the subject of a curious study and surprise to Captain Albert, that our musician was enabled to bear up against his tyranny with so much equal firmness and forbearance. He watched the countenance of Guernache, whenever they met, with a curious interest. By what secret resource of fortitude and hope was it that he could command so much elasticity, exhibit so much cheerfulness, bear with so much meekness, and utter no complaint. He wondered that the irksome duties which he studiously thrust upon him, and the frequently brutal language with which his performances were acknowledged, seemed to produce none of the cruel effects which he desired. His victim grew neither sad nor sullen. His violin still was heard resounding merrily at the instance of his comrades; and still his hearty, whole-souled laughter rang over the encampment, smiting ungraciously upon the senses of his basely-minded chief. In vain did this despot study how to increase and frame new annoyances for his subordinate. His tyranny contrived daily some new method to make the poor fellow unhappy. But, consoled by the peculiar secret which he possessed, of sympathy and comfort, the worthy drummer bore up cheerfully under his afflictions. He was resolved to wait patiently the return of Ribault with the promised supplies for the colony, and meanwhile to submit to his evil destiny without a murmur. It was always with a secret sense of triumph that he reminded himself of the near neighborhood of his joys, and he exulted in the success with which he could baffle nightly the malice of his superior. But, however docile, the patience and forbearance of Guernache availed him little. They did not tend to mitigate the annoyances which he was constantly compelled to endure. We are now to recall a portion of the preceding narrative, and to remind our reader of the visit which Captain Albert paid to the territories of Ouade, and the generous hospitalities of the King thereof. Guernache had been one of the party, and the absence of several days had been a serious loss to him in the delightful intercourse with his dusky bride. He might naturally hope, after his return from a journey so fatiguing, to be permitted a brief respite from his regular duties. But this was not according to the policy of his malignant superior. Some hours were consumed after arriving at the fort, in disposing of the provisions which had been obtained. In this labor Guernache had been compelled to partake with others of his companions. Whether it was that he betrayed an unusual degree of eagerness in getting through his task--showing an impatience to escape which his enemy detected and resolved to baffle, cannot now be said; but to his great annoyance and indignation, he was burdened with a portion of the watch for the night--a duty which was clearly incumbent only upon those who had not shared in the fatigues of the expedition. But to expostulate or repine was alike useless, and Guernache submitted to his destiny with the best possible grace. The provisions were stored, the gates closed, the watches set, and the garrison sunk to sleep, leaving our unhappy musician to pace, for several hours, the weary watch along the ramparts. How he looked forth into the dense forests which harbored his Monaletta! How he thought of the weary watch she kept! What were her fears, her anxieties? Did she know of his return? Did she look for his coming? The garrison slept--the woods were mysteriously silent! How delightful it would be to surprise her in the midst of her dreams, and answer to her murmurs of reproach--uttered in the sweetest fragmentary Gallic--"Monaletta! I am here! Here is your own Guernache!"

The temptation was perilously sweet! The suggestion was irresistible; and, in a moment of excited fancy and passion, Guernache laid down his piece, and leaped the walls of the fortress. He committed an unhappy error to enjoy a great happiness, for which the penalties were not slow to come. In the dead of midnight, the garrison, still in a deep sleep, they were suddenly aroused in terror by the appalling cry of "fire!" The fort, the tenements in which they slept, the granary, which had just been stored with their provisions, were all ablaze, and our Frenchmen woke in confusion and terror, unknowing where to turn, how to work, or what to apprehend. Their military stores were saved--their powder and munitions of war--but the "mils and beanes," so recently acquired from the granaries of King Ouade, with the building that contained them, were swept in ashes to the ground.

This disaster, full of evil in itself, was productive of others, as it led to the partial discovery of the secret of our drummer. Guernache was not within the fort when the alarm was given. It is not improbable that, had he not left his post, the conflagration would have been arrested in time to save the fort and its provisions. His absence was noted, and he was discovered, approaching from the forests, by those who bore forth the goods as they were rescued from the flames. These were mostly friends of Guernache, who would have maintained a generous silence; but, unhappily, Pierre Renaud was also one of the discoverers. This person not only bore him no good will,--though gratitude for the service rendered him at the feast of Toya should have bound him forever to the cause of Guernache,--but he was one who had become a gross sycophant and the mere creature of the governor. He knew the hatred which the latter bore to Guernache, and a sympathizing nature led him promptly to divine the cause. Overjoyed with the discovery which he had made, the base fellow immediately carried the secret to his master, and when the first confusion was over, which followed the disaster, Guernache was taken into custody, and a day assigned for his trial as a criminal. To him was ascribed the fire as well as desertion from his post. The latter fact was unquestionable--the former was inferred. It might naturally be assumed, indeed, that, if the watch had not been abandoned, the flames could not have made such fearful headway. It was fortunate for our Frenchmen that the intercourse maintained with the Indians had been of such friendly character. With the first intimation of their misfortune, the kings, Audusta and Maccou, bringing with them a numerous train of followers, came to assist them in the labor of restoration and repair. "They uttered unto their subjects the speedy diligence which they were to use in building another house, showing unto them that the Frenchmen were their loving friends and that they had made it evident unto them by the gifts and presents which they had received;--protesting that he whosoever put not his helping hand to the worke with all his might, should be esteemed as unprofitable." The entreaties and commands of the two kings were irresistible. But for this, our Huguenots, "being farre from all succours, and in such extremitie," would have been, in the language of their own chronicler, "quite and cleane out of all hope." The Indians went with such hearty good will to the work, and in such numbers, that, in less than twelve hours, the losses of the colonists were nearly all repaired. New houses were built; new granaries erected; and, among the fabrics of this busy period, it was not forgotten to construct a keep--a close, dark, heavy den of logs, designed as a prison, into which, as soon as his Indian friends had departed, our poor fiddler, Guernache, was thrust, neck and heels! The former were rewarded and went away well satisfied with what they had seen and done. They little conjectured the troubles which awaited their favorite. He was soon brought to trial under a number of charges--disobedience of orders, neglect of duty, desertion of his post, and treason! To all of these, the poor fellow pleaded "_not guilty_;" and, with one exception, with a good conscience. But he had not the courage to confess the truth, and to declare where he had been, and on what mission, when he left the fort, on the night of the fire. He had committed a great fault, the consequences of which were serious, and might have been still more so; and the pleas of invariable good conduct, in his behalf, and the assertion of his innocence of all evil intention, did not avail. His judges were not his friends; he was found guilty and remanded to his dungeon, to await the farther caprices and the judgment of his enemy.

VI.

THE LEGEND OF GUERNACHE.--Chap. IV.

THE DUNGEON AND THE SCOURGE.

Being the continuation of the melancholy Legend of Guernache.

The absence of Guernache from his usual place of meeting with Monaletta, brought the most impatient apprehension to the heart of the devoted woman. As the time wore away--as night after night passed without his coming, she found the suspense unendurable, and gradually drew nigh to the fortress of the Huguenots. More than once had he cautioned her against incurring a peril equally great to them both. But her heart was already too full of fears to be restrained by such dangers as he alone could have foreseen; and she now lurked about the fort at nightfall, and continued to hover around long after dawn, keeping watch upon its walls and portal. So close and careful, however, was this watch, that she herself remained undetected. One day, however, to her great satisfaction, one of the inmates came forth whom she knew to be a friend and associate of Guernache. This was one Lachane, affectionately called _La Chere_[13] by the soldiery, by whom he was very much beloved. Lachane was a sergeant, a good soldier, brave as a lion, but with as tender a heart, when the case required it, as ever beat in human bosom. He had long since learned to sympathize with the fate of Guernache, and had made frequent attempts to mollify the hostile feelings of his captain, in behalf of his friend. To the latter he had given much good counsel; and, but for _his_ earnest entreaties and injunctions, he would have revealed to Albert the true reason for the absence of Guernache from his post. But Guernache dreaded, as well he might, that the revelation would only increase the hate and rage of his superior, and, perhaps, draw down a portion of his vengeance upon the head of the unoffending woman. Lachane acquiesced in his reasoning, and was silent. But he was not the less active in bringing consolation, whenever he could, to the respective parties. He afforded to Monaletta, whose approach to the fort he suspected, an opportunity of meeting with him; and their interviews, once begun, were regularly continued. Day by day he contrived to convey to her the messages, and to inform her of the condition of the prisoner; to whom, in turn, he bore all necessary intelligence, and every fond avowal which was sent by Monaletta. But the loving and devoted wife was not satisfied with so frigid a mode of intercourse; and, in an evil hour, Lachane, whose own heart was too tender to resist the entreaties of one so fond, was persuaded to admit her within the fort, and into the dungeon of Guernache. We may censure his prudence and hers, but who shall venture to condemn either? The first visit led to a second, the second to a third, and, at length, the meetings between the lovers took place nightly. Lachane, often entreating, often exhorting, was yet always complying. Monaletta was admitted at midnight, and conducted forth by the dawn in safety; and thus meeting, Guernache soon forgot his own danger, and was readily persuaded by Monaletta to believe that she stood in none. The hours passed with them as with any other children, who, sitting on the shores of the sea, in the bright sunset, see not the rising of the waters, and feel not the falling of the night, until they are wholly overwhelmed. They were happy, and in their happiness but too easily forgot that there was such a person as Captain Albert in their little paradise.

[13] The names are thus written by Laudonniere in Hakluyt. But in
Charlevoix there is only one given to this personage, and that is
"Lachau."

But the pitcher which goes often to the well, is at last broken. They were soon destined to realize the proverb in their own experience. Something in the movements of Lachane, awakened the suspicions of Pierre Renaud, whose active hostility to Guernache has been shown already. This man now bore within the fortress the unenviable reputation of being the captain's spy upon the people. This miserable creature, his suspicion's once awakened, soon addressed all his abilities to the task of detecting the connection of Lachane with his prisoner; and it was not long before he had the malignant satisfaction of seeing him accompany another into the dungeon of Guernache. Though it was after midnight when the discovery was made, it was of a kind too precious to suffer delay in revealing it, and he hurried at once to the captain's quarters, well aware that, with such intelligence as he brought, he might safely venture to disturb him at any hour. But his eagerness did not lessen his caution, and every step was taken with the greatest deliberation and care. Albert was immediately aroused; but, unwilling, by a premature alarm, to afford the offenders an opportunity to escape, or to place themselves in any situation to defy scrutiny, some time was lost in making arrangements. The progress of Albert, and his satellites, going the rounds, was circuitous. The sentries were doubled with singular secrecy and skill. Such soldiers as were conceived to be most particularly bound to him, were awakened, and placed in positions most convenient for action and observation;--for Albert and Renaud, alike, conscious as it would seem of their own demerits, had come to suspect many of the soldiers of treachery and insurrection. These, perhaps, are always the fears most natural to a tyranny. Accordingly, with everything prepared for an explosion of the worst description, Captain Albert, in complete armor, made his appearance upon the scene.

Meantime, however, the proceedings of Renaud had not been carried on without, at length, commanding the attention and awakening the fears of so good a soldier as Lachane. Having discovered, on his rounds, that the guards were doubled, and that the sentinel at the sally-port had not only received a companion, but that the individual by whom Monaletta had been admitted was now removed to make way for another, he hurried away to the dungeon of Guernache. Here, whispering hurriedly his apprehensions, he endeavored to hasten the departure of the Indian woman. But his efforts were made too late. He was arrested, even while thus busied, by the Commandant himself, who, followed by Renaud and two other soldiers, suddenly came upon him from the rear of the building, where they had been harboring in ambush. Lachane was taken into immediate custody. An uproar followed, the alarm was given to the garrison, torches were brought, and Guernache, with the devoted Monaletta, were dragged forth together from the dungeon. She was wrapped up closely in the cloak of Lachane, but when Renaud waved a torch before her eyes, in order to discover who she was, she boldly threw aside the disguise, and stood revealed to the malignant scrutiny of the astonished but delighted despot. Upon beholding her, the fury of Albert knew no bounds. The secret of Guernache was now apparent; and the man whose vanity she had outraged, by preferring another in the dance, was now in full possession of the power to revenge himself upon both offenders. In that very moment, remembering his mortification, he formed a resolution of vengeance, which declared all the venom of a mean and malignant nature. He needed no art beyond his own to devise an ingenious torture for his victim. A few words sufficed to instruct the willing Renaud in the duty of the executioner. He commanded that the Indian woman should be scourged from the fort in the presence of the garrison. Then it was that the sullen soul of Guernache shuddered and succumbed beneath his tortures. With husky and trembling accents, he appealed to his tyrant in behalf of the woman of his heart.

"Oh! Captain Albert, as you are a man, do not this cruel thing. Monaletta is innocent of any crime but that of loving one so worthless as Guernache. She is my wife! Do with me as you will, but spare her--have mercy on the innocent woman!"

"Ah! you can humble yourself now, insolent. I have found the way, at last, to make you feel. You shall feel yet more. I will crush you to the dust. What, ho! there, Pierre Renaud! Have I not said? the lash! the lash! Wherefore do ye linger?"

"Do not, Captain Albert! I implore you, for your own sake, do not lay the accursed lash upon this young and innocent creature. Remember! She is a woman--a princess--a blood relation of our good friend, King Audusta. Upon me--upon my back bestow the punishment, but spare her--spare her, in mercy!"

But the prayers and supplications of the wretched man were met only by denunciation and scorn. The base nature of Albert felt only his own mortification. His appetite for revenge darkened his vision wholly. He saw neither his policy nor humanity; and the creatures of his will were not permitted to hesitate in carrying out his brutal resolution. Armed with little hickories from the neighboring woods, they awaited but his command, and with its repeated utterance, the lash descended heavily upon the uncovered shoulders of the unhappy woman. With the first stroke, she bounded from the earth with a piercing shriek, at once of entreaty, of agony, and horror. Up to this moment, neither she, nor, indeed, any of the spectators, except Renaud, and possibly Guernache himself, had imagined that Albert would put in execution a purpose so equally impolitic and cruel. But when the blow fell upon the almost fair and naked shoulders of the woman--when her wild, girlish, almost childlike shriek rent the air, then the long suppressed agonies of Guernache broke forth in a passion of fury that looked more like the excess of the madman than the mere ebullition, however intense, of a simply desperate man. He had struggled long at endurance. He had borne, hitherto, without flinching, everything in the shape of penalty which his petty tyrant could fasten upon him--much more, indeed, than the ordinary nature, vexed with frequent injustice, is willing to endure. But, in the fury and agony of that humiliating moment, all restraints of prudence or fear were forgotten, or trampled under foot. He flung himself loose from the men who held him, and darting upon the individual by whom the merciless blow had been struck, he felled him to the earth by a single blow of his Herculean fist. But he was permitted to do no more. In another instant, grappled by a dozen powerful arms, he was borne to the earth, and secured with cords which not only bound his limbs but were drawn so tightly as to cut remorselessly into the flesh. Here he lay, and his agony may be far more easily conceived than described, thus compelled to behold the further tortures of the woman of his heart, without being able to struggle and to die in her defence. His own tortures were forgotten, as he witnessed hers. In vain would his ears have rejected the terrible sound, stroke upon stroke, which testified the continuance of this brutal outrage upon humanity. Without mercy was the punishment bestowed; and, bleeding at every blow from the biting scourge, the wretched innocent was at length tortured out of the garrison. But with that first shriek to which she gave utterance, and which declared rather the mental horror than the bodily pain which she suffered from such a cruel degradation, she ceased any longer to acknowledge her suffering. Oh! very powerful for endurance is the strength of a loving heart! The rest of the punishment she bore with the silence of one who suffers martyrdom in the approving eye of heaven; as if, beholding the insane agonies of Guernache, she had steeled herself to bear with any degree of torture rather than increase his sufferings by her complaints. In this manner, and thus silent under her own pains, she was expelled from the fortress. She was driven to the margin of the cleared space by which it was surrounded. She heard the shouts which drove her thence, and heard nothing farther. She had barely strength to totter forward, like the deer with a mortal hurt, to the secret cover of the forest, when she sank down in exhaustion;--nature kindly interposing with insensibility, to save her from those physical sufferings which she could no longer feel and live!

With the morning of the next day, Guernache was brought before the judgment-seat of Albert. The charges were sufficiently serious under which he was arraigned. He had neglected his duty--had permitted, if not caused, the destruction of the fort by fire--had violated the laws, resisted their execution, and used violence against the officer of justice! In this last proven offence all of these which had been alleged were assumed against him. He was convicted by the rapid action of his superior, as a traitor and a mutineer; and, to the horror of his friends, and the surprise of all his comrades, was condemned to expiate his faults by death upon the gallows. Few of the garrison had anticipated so sharp a judgment. They knew that Guernache had been faulty, but they also knew what had been his provocations. They felt that his faults had been the fruit of the injustice under which he suffered. But they dared not interpose. The prompt severity with which Captain Albert carried out his decisions--the merciless character of his vindictiveness--discouraged even remonstrance. Guernache, as we have shown, was greatly beloved, and had many true friends among his people; but they were taken by surprise; and, so much stunned and confounded by the rapidity with which events had taken place, that they could only look on the terrible proceedings with a mute and self-reproachful horror. The transition from the seat of judgment to the place of execution was instantaneous. Guernache appealed in vain to the justice of Ribault, whose coming from France was momently expected. This denied, he implored the less ignoble doom of the sword or the shot, in place of that upon the scaffold. But it did not suit the mean malice of Albert to omit any of his tortures. Short was the shrift allowed the victim;--ten minutes for prayer--and sure the cord which stifled it forever. In deep horror, in a hushed terror, which itself was full of horror, his gloomy comrades gathered at the place of execution, by the commands of their petty despot. There was no concert among them, by which the incipient indignation and fury in their bosoms might have declared itself in rescue and commotion. One groan, the involuntary expression of a terror that had almost ceased to breathe, answered the convulsive motion which indicated the last struggle of their beloved comrade.[14] Then it was that they began to feel that they could have died for him, and might have saved him. But it was now too late; and prudence timely interposed to prevent a rash explosion. The armed myrmidons of Albert were about them. He, himself, in complete armor, with his satellite, Pierre Renaud, also fully armed, standing beside him; and it was evident that every preparation had been made to quell insubordination, and punish the refractory with as sharp and sudden a judgment as that which had just descended upon their comrade.

[14] Says Charlevoix:--"Il pendit lui-même un soldat, qui n'avoit
point merité la mort, il en dégrada un autre des armes avec aussi peu
de justice, puis il l'exila, et l'on crut que son dessein étoit de le
laisser mourir de faim et de misere, etc." But we must not anticipate
the revelations of the text.

The poor Monaletta, crouching in the cover of the woods, recovered from her stupor in the cool air of the morning, but it was sunset before she could regain the necessary strength to move. Then it was, that, with the natural tendency of a loving heart, curious only about the fate of him for whom alone her heart desired life, she bent her steps towards that cruel fortress which had been the source of so much misery to both. Very feeble and slow was her progress, but it was still too rapid; it brought her too soon to a knowledge of that final blow which fell, with worse terrors than the scourge, upon the soul. She arrived in season to behold the form of the unfortunate Guernache, abandoned by all, and totally lifeless, waving in the wind from the branches of a perished oak, directly in front of the fortress. The deepest sorrows of the heart are those which are born dumb. There are some woes which the lip can never speak, nor the pen describe. There are some agonies over which we draw the veil without daring to look upon them, lest we freeze to stone in the terrible inspection. There is no record of that grief which seized upon the heart of the poor Indian woman, Monaletta, as she gazed upon the beloved but unconscious form of her husband. She approached it not, though watching it from sunset till the gray twilight lapsed away into the denser shadows of the night. But, with the dawn of day, when the Frenchmen looked forth from the fortress for the body of their comrade, it had disappeared. They searched for it in vain. From that day Monaletta disappeared also. She was neither to be found in the neighboring woods, nor among the people of her kindred. But, long afterwards they told, with shuddering and apprehension, of a voice upon the midnight air, which resembled that of their murdered comrade, followed always by the piercing shriek of a woman, which reminded them of the dreadful utterance of the Indian woman, when first smitten upon the shoulders by the lash of the ruffian. Thus endeth the legend of Guernache, and the Princess Monaletta.

VII.

LACHANE, THE DELIVERER.

But the sacrifice of Guernache brought no peace to the colony. Our Huguenots were scarcely Christians. They were of a rude, wild temper, to which the constant civil wars prevailing in France had brought a prejudicial training. Our chronicler tells us nothing of their devotions. We hear sometimes that they prayed, but rather for the benefit of the savages than their own. Their public religious services were ostentatious ceremonials, designed to impress the red-men with an idea of their superior faith and worship. Laudonniere, who writes for them, and was one of their number, seldom deals in a religious phraseology, which he might reasonably be expected to have done as one of a people leaving their homes for the sake of conscience. But there is good reason to suppose that, with our Huguenots, as in the case of the New England Puritans, the idea of religion was more properly the idea of party. It was a struggle for political power that moved the Dissenters, as well in France as England, quite as much as any feeling of denial or privation on the score of their religion. This pretext was made to justify a cause which might have well found its sanction in its intrinsic merits; but which it was deemed politic to urge on the higher grounds of conscience and duty to God. Certain it is that we do not anywhere see, in the history of the colony established by Coligny, any proofs of that strong devotional sentiment which has been urged as the motive to its establishment. Doubtless, this was a prevailing motive, along with others, for Coligny himself; but the adventurers chosen to begin the settlement for the reception of the persecuted sect in Florida, were evidently not very deeply imbued with religion of any kind. They were a wild and reckless body of men, whose deeds were wholly in conflict with the pure and lovely profession of sentiment which has been made in their behalf. How far their deeds are to be justified by the provocations which they received, and the tyrannies which they endured, may be a question; but there can be no question with regard to the general temper which they exhibited--the tone of their minds--the feelings of their hearts--by all of which they are shown as stubborn, insubordinate and selfish. It is not denied that they had great provocation to violence; but Laudonniere himself admits that they were, in all probability, "not so obedient to their captain as they should have been." "Misfortune," he adds, "or rather the just judgment of God would have it that those which could not bee overcome by fire nor water, should be undone by their ownselves. This is the common fashion of men, which cannot continue in one state, and had rather to overthrow themselves, than not to attempt some new thing dayly."

Not only was no peace in the colony after the execution of Guernache, but the evil spirit, in the mood of Captain Albert, was very far from being laid. "His madness," in the language of the chronicler, "seemed to increase from day to day." He was not content to punish Guernache; he determined to extend his severities to the friends and associates of the unhappy victim. Some of these he only frowned upon and threatened; but his threats were apt to be fulfilled. Others he brought up for punishment;--sympathy with his enemy, being a prime offence against the dignity and safety of our petty sovereign. Among those who had thus rendered themselves obnoxious, Lachane was necessarily a conspicuous object. In the same unwise and violent spirit in which he had pursued Guernache, Captain Albert was determined to proceed against this man, who was really equally inoffensive with Guernache, and quite as much beloved among the people. But the aspect of the two cases was not precisely the same. The friends of Lachane, warned by the fate of Guernache, were somewhat more upon their guard,--more watchful and suspicious,--and inclined to make the support and maintenance of the one, a tribute to the manes of the other. Besides, Pierre Renaud, who had some how been the deadly enemy of Guernache, had no hostility to Lachane. The latter, too, had not so singularly offended the _amour propre_ of Captain Albert, by his successful rivalry among the damsels of Audusta. They had not so decidedly shown the preference for him as they had for the fiddler, over his superior. No doubt he was preferred, for he, too, like Guernache, was a person very superior in form and physiognomy to Albert. But, if they felt any preference for the former, they had not so offensively declared it, as the indiscreet Monaletta had done; and, with these qualifying circumstances, in his favor, Lachane was brought up for judgment. His offence, such as it was, did not admit of denial. Some palliation was attempted by a reference to the claims of Guernache, the excellence of his character, his usefulness, and the general favor he had found equally among the red-men and his own people. These suggestions were unwisely made. They censured equally the justice and the policy of the tyrant, and thus irritated anew his self-esteem. He thought himself exceedingly merciful, accordingly, in banishing the offender, whom it was just as easy and quite as agreeable to him, to hang. Lachane was accordingly sentenced to perpetual exile to a desert island along the sea. To this point he was conducted in melancholy state, by the trusted creatures of the despot.

It is not known to us at the present day, though the matter is still, probably, within the province of the antiquarian, to which of the numerous sea islands of the neighborhood the unhappy man was banished. It was one divided from the colony, and from the main, by an arm of the sea of such breadth, and so open to the most violent action of the waves, that any return of the exile by swimming, or without assistance from his comrades, was not apprehended or hoped for. His little desolate domain is described as about three leagues from Fort Charles, as almost entirely barren, a mere realm of sand, treeless and herbless, without foliage sufficient to shelter from sun and storm, or to provide against famine by its fruits. Should this island ever be identified with that of Lachane's place of exile, it should receive his name to the exclusion of every other.

Here, then, hopeless and companionless, was the unhappy victim destined to remain, until death should bring him that escape which the mercy of his fellows had denied. Yet he was not to be abandoned wholly; a certain pittance of provisions was allowed him that he might not absolutely die of famine. This allowance was calculated nicely against his merest necessities. It was to be brought him on the return of every eighth day, and this period was that, accordingly, on which, alone, could he be permitted to gaze upon the face of a fellow being and a countryman.