"Ah, traitor! Is it thou?" cried Laudonniere. "Let me but live to slay thee, and I care nothing for the rest." With these words he sprang upon the traitor guide, and would have slain him at a stroke, but for the interposition of Melendez. He thrust back the renegade, and confronted the captain of the Huguenots. But Laudonniere shrank from the conflict, for Melendez was followed by his troop; and, saving one man, a stout soldier named Bartholomew, who fought manfully with a heavy partizan, he stood utterly alone and unsupported. He gave back, or rather was drawn back by Bartholomew; but now that Melendez and his people had seen the particular prey whom they had been seeking, they rushed with fiercer appetite than ever to make him captive. The efforts of the Spaniards were then redoubled. The fierce bigot Pedro Melendez himself--a stalwart warrior, clad in heavy black armor of woven mail, with a great white cross upon his breast--made the most desperate efforts to bring Laudonniere to the last passage at arms; and for a time the Frenchman, though quite too light and enfeebled by sickness for the contest with such a champion, was eager to indulge him. He struggled with the friendly arm which perforce drew him away, and great was his rage, though impotent, when the rush of a number of his own fugitives passing between at this moment, hurried him onward as by the downward rush of a torrent, to the safety of his life if not to the increase of his honor. At that moment Laudonniere had gladly redeemed by a glorious death, at the hands of the fierce Asturian, the errors and the failures of his life. But this was denied him, and, vainly struggling against the tide of fugitives, he was swept with them in the direction of the _corps de garde_. Laudonniere yielded in this manner only foot by foot, striking at the foe and at his own runagates alike, and receiving upon his shield, with the dexterity of an accomplished cavalier, the assault of a score of pikes which pressed beyond the heavy blade of Melendez. When at length the retreating Frenchmen had reached the court of the fortress, they scattered headlong, finding themselves confronted by new and consolidated masses of the enemy, and each of them sought incontinently his own method of escape. "_Sauve qui peut!_" was the cry, and the crowd by which Laudonniere had hitherto been borne unwillingly along, now melted away on every hand, leaving him again almost alone in the presence of the Spaniard. And still the faithful fellow, Bartholomew, clung to his superior, saving him from the rashness which would only have flung away his own life without an object. He hurried along his unhappy and now reckless captain, taking his way into the yard of Laudonniere's lodging. Thither they were closely pursued, and, but for a tent that happened to be standing in the place, they must have been taken. But, passing behind this tent, while the Spaniards were busied in groping within it, or cutting away the cords,