It was all that Menendez could do to get them to go a rod further. All
night, he said, he had prayed for help; their provisions and ammunition
were gone; there was nothing to do but to go on and take the fort. They
went on.
In the faint light of early morning a trumpeter saw them racing down the
slope toward the fort and blew the alarm. "Santiago! Santiago!" sounded
in the ears of the half-awakened French as the Spaniards came through
the gaps in the defenses and over the ramparts. Fierce faces and
stabbing pikes were everywhere. Laudonniere snatched sword and buckler,
rallied his men to the point of greatest danger, fought desperately
until there was no more hope, and with a single soldier of his guard
escaped into the woods. Challeux, chisel in hand, on his way to his
work, swung himself over the palisade and ran like a boy. In the edge of
the forest he and a few other fugitives paused and looked down upon the
enclosure of the fort. It was a butchery. Some of the Huguenots in the
woods decided to return and surrender rather than risk the terrors of
the wilderness. The Spaniards, they said, were at least men. Six of them
did return, and were cut down as they came. Pierre Debre side by side
with a few desperate men who had one of the two light cannon the fort
possessed, was fighting like a tiger in defense of a corner where a
group of women and children were crouching.
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