Laudonniere shut his ears, and with his companion plunged deeper into the forests. Here he found other fugitives like himself, and others subsequently joined him; some were wounded even unto death, others slightly; all were terror-stricken, shuddering with horror, incapable from wo and agony. What had they beheld, what endured, and what was the prospect before them but of massacre? A hasty council was convened among the party, and the advice of Laudonniere--he could command no longer--was, that they should bury themselves among the reeds and within the marshes which lay along the river, out of sight, until they could make their small vessels, by which the mouth of the river was still guarded, aware of their situation. But this council was agreeable to a part only, of that bewildered company. Another portion preferred to push for one of the Indian villages, at some little distance in the forests, where, hitherto, they had found a friendly reception. They persevered in this purpose, leaving Laudonniere and a few others in the marshes. Hither, then, these hapless fugitives sped, till they could go no farther; and until their commandant himself, still unrecovered from the chill and fever which had seized him at the first coming on of autumn, declared his inability to go deeper into the thicket, though it promised him the safety which he sought. He was already up to his neck in water, and such was his weakness, that he was about to yield to his fate. But for the faithful and unwearied support of one of his soldiers, Jean du Chemin, who held him above the water when he would have sunk, and who stuck by him all the rest of that day, and through the long and dreary night which followed, he must have perished. Meanwhile, two of his soldiers swam off in the direction of the vessels. Fortunately for those swimmers, those in the vessels had been already apprized of the taking of the fort by Jean de Hais, the master carpenter, who had made his escape the first, by dropping down the river in a shallop. The boats of the vessels were immediately pushed up the stream, and succeeded in picking up the swimmers, and, finally, when Laudonniere and his faithful companions were both about to sink, in extricating them from their marshy place of refuge. Eighteen or twenty of the fugitives (among whom was the celebrated painter, Jaques le Moyne de Morgues, to whom we owe mostly the illustrations of Floridian scenery, costume, and lineaments preserved in De Bry and other collections) were rescued in this manner, and conveyed on board the ships. These, with Laudonniere, subsequently made their way, after many disasters, perils of the sea and land, a detention in England, where they were again indebted to the humanity of the English for succor and sympathy. An artful attempt was made by Melendez to obtain possession of these vessels, but he was baffled. They sailed from the river of May on the 25th September, 1565, thus