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, 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, Laudonniere 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 along-side; 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. On the coast of Cuba, they took a brigantine, with wine and stores. Embarking in her, they next fell in with a caravel, which they also captured. Landing at a village of Jamaica, they plundered and caroused for a week, and had hardly reembarked when they fell in with a small vessel having on board the governor of the island. She made 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 certain apes and parrots, for which his captors had also bargained, contrived to send instructions to his wife. Whence it happened that at daybreak three armed vessels fell upon them, retook the prize, and captured or killed all the pirates but twenty-six, who, cutting the moorings of their brigantine, fled out to sea. Among these was the ringleader, Fourneaux, and, happily, the pilot, Trenchant. The latter, eager to return to Fort Caroline, whence he had been forcibly taken, succeeded during the night in bringing the vessel to the coast of Florida. Great were the wrath and consternation of the discomfited pirates, when they saw their dilemma; for, having no provision, they must either starve or seek succor at the fort. They chose the latter alternative, and bore away for the St. John's. A few casks of Spanish wine yet remained, and nobles and soldiers, fraternized by the common peril of a halter, joined in a last carouse. As the wine mounted to their heads, in the mirth of drink and desperation, they enacted their own trial. One personated the judge, another the