The brothers embraced. The bond was knit between them, whatever might be the event; and when, at morning, the main body of the Frenchmen surrendered themselves to the Spanish adelantado, the Erlachs were not among them. They, with twenty others, all Huguenots, who detested equally the power and feared the savage fanaticism of Melendez, had disappeared silently in the night, leaving as a message for the Spanish chief, that they preferred infinitely to be devoured by the savages, than to receive his mercy. Melendez looked anxiously to the dark forests in which they had shrouded themselves from his pursuit. He would gladly have penetrated their depths of shadow and their secret glooms, in search of victims, whom he certainly never would have spared if caught; but the object was too small for the peril which it involved; and having destroyed the fort and shipping which they had been building, content with having broken up the power of the French in the country, he returned with his captives to St. Augustine. He kept his faith with them. Many of them joined themselves to his troops, and accompanied his expeditions, and others who were Huguenots found new favor with him by undergoing conversion to his faith. With this chapter fairly ends the history of the Huguenot colonies of Coligny in Florida; but other histories followed which will require other chapters. XXIV. ALPHONSE D'ERLACH. The dawn of the morning after the separation of D'Erlach with his few companions from the great body of the French, found the former emerging from a dense thicket which they had traversed through the night. They were still but a few miles from their late encampment. A bright and generous sun, almost the first that had shone for several weeks in unclouded heavens, seemed to smile upon their desperate enterprise. The cries of wild fowl awaking in the forests, with occasionally the merry chaunt of some native warbler, arousing to the day, spake also in the language of encouragement. On the borders of a little lake, they found some wild ducks feeding, which they approached without alarming them, and the fire of a couple of arquebuses gave them sufficient food for the day. A small supply of maize, prepared after the Indian fashion, was borne by each of the party, but this was carefully preserved for use in a moment of necessity. Assuming the possibility of their being pursued, the youthful leader urged their progress until noon, when they halted for repose, in a dense thicket, which promised to give them shelter. Here, having himself undertaken the watch, Alphonse D'Erlach counselled his people to seek for a renewal of their strength in slumber. They followed his counsel without scruple, though not without a struggle on the part of his brother, and others among them, to share his watch. This he would not permit, alleging his inability to sleep, but promising, when he felt thus disposed, to devolve his present duty upon others.