So great was the joy of the soldiers, and such their speed, that they
soon came up with the Master of the Camp and Ochoa, who was hastening to
receive the reward of carrying the good news to the General of the
capture of the sentinel. But the Master of the Camp, seeing the spirit
which animated the soldiery, killed the sentinel, and cried out with a
loud voice to those who were pressing forward, "Comrades! do as I do.
God is with us;" and turned running toward the fort, and, meeting two
Frenchmen on the way, he killed one of them, and Andres Lopez Patino the
other. Those in the environs of the fort, seeing this tragedy enacted,
set up loud outcries; and in order to know the cause of the alarm, one
of the French within opened the postern of the principal gate, which he
had no sooner done than it was observed by the Master of the Camp; and,
throwing himself upon him, he killed him and entered the gate, followed
by the most active of his followers.
The French, awakened by the clamor, some dressed, others in their
night-clothes, rushed to the doors of their houses to see what had
happened; but they were all killed, except sixty of the more wary, who
escaped by leaping the walls.
Immediately the standards of the Sergeant-major and of Diego Mayo were
brought in, and set up by Rodrigo Troche and Pedro Valdes Herrera, with
two cavaliers, at the same moment. These being hoisted, the trumpets
proclaimed the victory, and the band of soldiers who had entered opened
the gates and sought the quarters, leaving no Frenchman alive.
The Adelantado, hearing the cries, left Castaneda in his place to
collect the people who had not come up, who were at least half the
force, and went himself to see if they were in any danger. He arrived at
the fort running; and as he perceived that the soldiers gave no quarter
to any of the French, he shouted "that, at the penalty of their lives,
they should neither wound nor kill any woman, cripple, or child under
fifteen years of age." By which seventy persons were saved, the rest
were all killed.
Renato de Laudonniere, the commander of the fort, escaped, with his
servant and some twenty or thirty others, to a vessel lying in the
river.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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