from the fort, where he left him to starve. For a time his comrades
chafed in smothered fury. The crisis came at length. A few of the
fiercer spirits leagued together, assailed their tyrant, murdered him,
delivered the famished soldier, and called to the command one Nicolas
Barre, a man of merit. Barre took the command, and thenceforth there was
peace.

Peace, such as it was, with famine, homesickness, and disgust. The rough
ramparts and rude buildings of Charlesfort, hatefully familiar to their
weary eyes, the sweltering forest, the glassy river, the eternal silence
of the lifeless wilds around them, oppressed the senses and the spirits.
They dreamed of ease, of home, of pleasures across the sea, of the
evening cup on the bench before the cabaret, and dances with kind
wenches of Dieppe. But how to escape? A continent was their solitary
prison, and the pitiless Atlantic shut them in. Not one of them knew how
to build a ship; but Ribaut had left them a forge, with tools and iron,
and strong desire supplied the place of skill. Trees were hewn down and
the work begun. Had they put forth to maintain themselves at Port Royal
the energy and resource which they exerted to escape from it, they might
have laid the cornerstone of a solid colony.

All, gentle and simple, labored with equal zeal. They calked the seams
with the long moss which hung in profusion from the neighboring trees;
the pines supplied them with pitch; the Indians made for them a kind of
cordage; and for sails they sewed together their shirts and bedding. At
length a brigantine worthy of Robinson Crusoe floated on the waters of
the Chenonceau. They laid in what provision they could, gave all that
remained of their goods to the Indians, embarked, descended the river,
and put to sea. A fair wind filled their patchwork sails and bore them
from the hated coast. Day after day they held their course, till at