Laudonniere thought he recognized the inlet as one leading into a broad
river, on the opposite side of which was located an Indian village called
Seloy. This place he had visited two years before in company with
Admiral Ribault, and he determined to reassure himself as to the
locality; therefore, bidding Rene accompany him, he entered a small boat,
and ordering another, full of soldiers, to follow them, he gave the word
to pull straight for the breakers.
Just as Rene thought the boat was to be swallowed by the raging seas, his
uncle guided her, with great skill, into a narrow passage that opened in
their very midst. After a few minutes of suspense, during which Rene
dared hardly to breathe, they shot into smooth waters, rounded a point of
land, and saw before them the village of which they were in search. On
the beach in front of it a crowd of savage figures, nearly naked, were
dancing wildly, and brandishing bows and spears.
Meanwhile, the village that the boats were now approaching had been
thrown into a state of the greatest excitement by the appearance of the
ships, which had been discovered while yet so distant that their sails
resembled the wings of the white sea-gull. Upon the first alarm all the
warriors had been collected on the beach, and the women had left their
work in the fields of maize and hurried with the children to the security
of the forest depths. When, however, the fleet came to anchor and the
Indians could distinguish the meaning of their banners, their alarm was
changed to joy; for they had learned to love the French--who, upon their
previous visit, had treated them with kindness--as much as they hated the
cruel Spaniards, whose ships had also visited that coast.
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