them greenhorns, and threatening condign punishment if, on their
triumphant return, they should be refused free entrance to the fort.

They were no sooner gone than the unfortunate Laudonniere was gladdened
in his solitude by the approach of his fast friends Ottigny and Arlac,
who conveyed him to the fort and reinstated him. The entire command was
reorganized, and new officers appointed. The colony was wofully
depleted; but the bad blood had been drawn off, and thenceforth all
internal danger was at an end. In finishing the fort, in building two
new vessels to replace those of which they had been robbed, and in
various intercourse with the tribes far and near, the weeks passed until
the twenty-fifth of March, when an Indian came in with the tidings that
a vessel was hovering off the coast. Laudonniere sent to reconnoitre.
The stranger lay anchored at the mouth of the river. She was a Spanish
brigantine, manned by the returning mutineers, starving, downcast, and
anxious to make terms. Yet, as their posture seemed not wholly pacific,
Landonniere sent down La Caille, with thirty soldiers concealed at the
bottom of his little vessel. Seeing only two or three on deck, the
pirates allowed her to come alongside; when, to their amazement, they
were boarded and taken before they could snatch their arms. Discomfited,
woebegone, and drunk, they were landed under a guard. Their story was
soon told. Fortune had flattered them at the outset, and on the coast of
Cuba they took a brigantine laden with wine and stores. Embarking in
her, they next fell in with a caravel, which also they captured. Landing
at a village in Jamaica, they plundered and caroused for a week, and had
hardly re-embarked when they met a small vessel having on board the
governor of the island. She made a desperate fight, but was taken at
last, and with her a rich booty. They thought to put the governor to
ransom but the astute official deceived them, and, on pretence of
negotiating for the sum demanded,--together with "four or six parrots,