gave the _cri de guerre_, the signal of battle, but as he wheeled about to procure his weapons, he beheld other detachments of the Spaniards making their way through the unrepaired and undefended breaches in the wall. Still he cried aloud, even as he fled, and Laudonniere started from his slumbers only to hear the startling cry--"To arms! to arms! The enemy is upon us!" The warning came too late. The amiable weakness which withdrew the sentinels from the walls because of the weather, was not now to be repaired by any energy or courage. The garrison was aroused, but not permitted to rally or embody themselves. Melendez with his troop had reached the _corps de garde_ quite as soon as Laudonniere. The latter--lately supposed to have usurped royal honors--was very soon convinced that the only object before him was the safety of his own life. With the first alarm, he caught up sword and buckler, and rushed valiantly enough into the court. But he only appeared to be made painfully conscious that everything was lost. His appeals to his soldiers only brought his enemies about him, who butchered his men as they approached their guns, and who now appeared in numbers on every side, in full possession of the fortress. The magazines were already in their hands, and a desperate effort of Laudonniere's artillerists to recover them, was followed only by their own destruction. The most vigorous resistance, hand to hand, was made on the south-west side of the fort. Here the Frenchmen opposed themselves with cool and determined courage, to the entrance of the enemy. Hither Laudonniere hurried, crying aloud to his men in the language of encouragement, and doing his utmost, by the most headlong valor, to repair the mischiefs of his feeble rule and most unhappy remissness of authority. Verily, to those who saw how well he carried himself in this the moment of his worst despair, the past errors of the unhappy Laudonniere had been forgiven if not forgotten. But the struggle, on the part of any valor, was utterly in vain. The Spaniards had won a footing already too secure for dispossession. Led on by Pedro Melendez, with ever and anon his fanatic war-cry--"God is with us, my comrades," ringing in their ears, now thoroughly excited by the earnest of success which they enjoyed, in overwhelming numbers and in the full faith that they fought the battles of Holy Church, the Spaniards were irresistible. They mocked the tardy valor of our Huguenots, their feeble force, and purposeless attempts. At length the party led by Melendez confronted Laudonniere. The Spanish chieftain knew not the person of his enemy. But the renegade Frenchman, Francis Jean, discovered his ancient leader, and the desire for revenge, which had led to his treachery, filled his heart with exultation at the prospect of the gratification of his passion. He cried to Melendez: "That is he! That is the captain of the heretics--that is Laudonniere!"