"I will sooner trust the incarnate devil himself, than this Melendez," was the resolution of Alphonse D'Erlach to his elder brother. "Go not, _mon frére_, yield not: the savage Floridian has no heart so utterly stony as that of this Spaniard. I will peril anything with the savage, ere I trust to his doubtful mercy." And such was the resolve of many others, but it was not that of Ribault. "What!" exclaimed one of his friendly counsellors--"he has shown you our slain comrades, butchered under the very arrangement which he accords to us, and yet you trust to him?" The infatuated leader, broken in spirit, and utterly exhausted in the struggle with fate, replied: "That he has freely shown me what he has done, is no proof that he designs any such deeds hereafter. His fury is satiated. It is impossible that he will commit a like crime of this nature. It is his pride that would have us wholly in his power." "He hath fed on blood until he craves it," cried Alphonse D'Erlach. "You go to your death, Monsieur Ribault. The tiger invites you to a banquet where the guest brings the repast." He was unheard, at least by the Huguenot general. "We will leave this man, my friends," cried Alphonse D'Erlach, the strong will and great heart naturally rising to command in the moment of extremity. "We will leave this man. _Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat._ He goes to the sacrifice!" And when Ribault prepared in the morning to lead his people across the bay, he found but an hundred and fifty of all the force that he commanded during the previous day. Two hundred had disappeared in the night under the guidance of D'Erlach. CHAPTER III. The fates had the blinded Ribault in their keeping. He was ferried across the stream for the last time, by the grim ferryman vouchsafed him; and the trophies which he first laid at the feet of the adelantado consisted of his own armor, a dagger, a casque of gold, curiously and beautifully wrought; his buckler, his pistolet, and a secret commission which he had received at the hands of Admiral Coligny himself. The standards of France and of the Admiral were then lowered at the feet of the Spaniard, then the banners of companies, and finally the sword of the Huguenot general. Never was submission more complete and shameful. The spirit of the veteran was utterly broken and gone. But this degradation was not thus to end. Melendez gave orders that he and the companions he had brought with him, eight in number, should be tied with their hands behind their backs. The indignity brought the blush with tenfold warmth into the cheeks of the old warrior. He foresaw the inevitable doom before him, but he felt the shame only. "Have I lived for this? Is it thus, Monsieur Melendez, that you treat a warrior and a Christian?" "God forbid that I should treat a Christian after this fashion. But _are_ you a Christian, señor?" "Of the Reformed Church, I am!" was the reply.