University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
SCENE IN THE PLACE D'ARMES.

The shadows of evening had fallen over the town, and
a moonlit twilight was already mingled with the sunset,
ere the Spaniard turned to leave the council-chamber,
bearing away with him, upon his sword, the signs of submission,
of which, in so extraordinary a manner, he had
possessed himself. As he retired from the forum, the
crowd gave back in silence before the advance of his stout
men-at-arms, and, passing through their midst, he reached
the door leading out into the corridor without molestation;
though here and there a half-smothered execration
from some about the entrance promised that the
power alone was wanting to create a reaction in the
multitude fearful to contemplate. Some such thoughts
seemed to pass through the mind of the cavalier, for he

hastened his steps; and, as he approached the door,
gave an order or two in a low tone to his halberdiers,
who immediately formed around him and his young
companion, with their glittering halberds in their hands,
presenting to the multitude an equal front on every
side. The broad staircase that led from the corridor
down to the wide portal opening into the Plaza, or
governor's square, by which they had ascended to the
council-chamber, they found so densely thronged with
citizens, who showed no disposition to retire, and so
obscured by the approaching night, that their progress
became sensibly slower, and, as the Spaniard thought,
more unnecessarily hindered by the pressing of the
townsmen than it had been in the hall. This suspicion
became confirmed while they were descending
the staircase, and, before they had reached the foot of
it, they found themselves rudely borne against with
such manifestly hostile purposes by the sullen populace,
that they could no longer doubt their intentions; more
especially when they called to mind that the portion
of the townspeople thronging the corridor had given no
answering cry for Spain, and that from their quarter
proceeded the murmurs of dissent and hostility that
had reached their ears.

“Methinks we are beset, signor,” said the elder, in
an under tone, to his companion.

“We are doubtless involved in the opposite faction,
that holds to the councillors,” replied the other.

“Nay, it seems to me to be rather the party that
cry neither France nor Spain—the adherents of yonder
tall gallant in the portal with the red plume.
They constitute but a fraction of the populace, and
are mostly youths; but they appear, every one of
them, to have gathered here to oppose us. By the
good rood! I could wish thou hadst been in Spain ere
thou hadst put foot on shore with me, signor!”

“Heed me not, Garcilaso. At least thou wilt not
be alone in this strait. But they will not dare offer
violence in the very mouths of our cannon!”

“They seem likely to do so. But if we get once

on the outside, we can give them play. If these pent
fires break out while we are within, our blood will
have to quench them. In Heaven's name! they must
not set upon us in the house!”

“Hark, Garcilaso, to those cries without!” exclaimed
the younger. “Halberdiers, be firm, and press
steadily through the portal!” he instantly added, in a
cool, determined voice, but little raised above his natural
tone.

The shouts he spoke of proceeded from a few
voices beyond the threshold in the open air, and seemed
to be made for the purpose of ascertaining, at this
crisis, the popular feeling; but so determined were
they in their tone, and so evidently aiming at violence,
that the highest degree of precaution was called for on
the part of the small party; and, as the danger rose,
the two Spanish cavaliers showed no want of coolness
and steadiness of nerve to meet it. As they proceeded
towards the outer door, the cries were more decided,
and the shouts of

“Death to the Spaniard!”

“No Spain!”

“Vive la liberté!” left them no room for mistaking
the temper of the people.

“Methinks our tokens of authority avail us little,”
he added to the younger, smiling; and removing, at
the same time, the signet ring and key from his sword,
he hid the latter in his breast and placed the former
upon his finger; then, grasping his weapon like a
man who intends to do service with it, he cried,

“Advance your halberds and press right on, my
men! If any oppose you, cut them down!”

“Hear them, citizens! They would shed your
blood like water!” cried the tall leader, conspicuous
by his crimson plume, as well as by his height, among
a score or two of young men who surrounded him,
leaning with seeming indifference, which their restless
eyes contradicted, upon bright, slender swords of extraordinary
length, with which they were all armed;
each having also a crimson badge attached to the low

crown of his flapping chapeau. “It is not yet too
late to save the city and province from the hand of
Ramarez and his minions! They have not possession.
Rally around me, and I will free you from this Spanish
yoke ere it is yet riveted! Let us make them prisoners,
and defy both Spain and France; ay, and the tyrannical
council who would hold the town, not for love
of the town's honour, but to hold their own petty power,
which, with the new government, they know would
topple to the ground. To your homes, citizens, and
gird on your swords, and we will a second time expel
the Spaniards from the shores of Louisiana!”

“It is the young Sieur Caronde!” cried several
voices around. “He would free us from Spain, and
teach us disloyalty to France, to rule us himself with
his wild friends! Vive la belle France! vive Louis
Quinze!”

“No Louis! no France!” fiercely shouted the young
creoles, clashing their glittering swords together menacingly.

For a few moments tumultuous cries from contending
factions rose loudly on the night air. Amid the
confusion and party excitement, the Spanish cavaliers,
preceded by their stanch men-at-arms, succeeded in
forcing their way through the portal, and into the midst
of the small band with crimson badges and long strait
swords that stood around it. Hitherto the Spaniards
had been pressed upon and jostled only by the crowd,
few of whom bore weapons, while most of them were
satisfied with this method of showing their hostility,
without resorting to one of a more sanguinary character.
But they had now suddenly come upon a small
but resolute band, led by a man who seemed fearless
as he was reckless and daring, and which appeared to
have waited patiently until the crowd had worried
them to the portal before they took an active part in
the scene; for no sooner did they issue beneath the
arch, than, lifting their swords, on which they had been
all the while negligently leaning (save when they
clashed them once together to give energy to their

declaration against France), the band threw themselves
desperately upon the halberdiers, crying,

“A Caronde! a Caronde! No Spain! no Spain!
Cut down the Spanish bloodhounds!”

“Let us place our backs to this wall, Garcilaso,”
said the younger cavalier, with the coolness of a veteran
in scenes like the present, suiting the action to
the word. “Spare not the sharp edges of your battle-axes,
men-at-arms!” he added, as the tried halberdiers
met with terrific sweeps of their ponderous weapons
this sudden onset of the young men, shivering their
steels like weapons of glass. Nevertheless, short daggers
and stilettoes instantly took the places of the
broken swords in their hands, and, like tigers thirsting
for blood, the fierce creoles leaped within the strokes,
which, if they had fallen, would have cloven them to
the chine, and buried their knives in the breasts of the
unwieldy soldiers ere they could ward off the sudden
blow.

“Sound a rescue forthwith, Manuel, or the sharp
knives of these knaves will soon let your wind out
through your doublet!” said the elder, parrying successfully,
as he spoke, a third thrust made at him by
the leader of the party over the heads of the men-at-arms,
whom he disdained to attack, and whose weapons
he did not regard in his anxious wish to reach his
more distinguished adversary. Once, also, the younger
Spaniard had crossed blades with him over the fallen
body of a halberdier, but another stepping in to fill
up the gap, separated them almost as soon as they had
met.

“Bravely dealt, halberds! Stand firm and receive
them, but let no man leave the ranks. There swung
a good stroke! Ha, that told better still! Fight
cheerily! They will soon tire of this rough play.
See, the populace take no part with them, and they
are scarce thrice our number. Bear up a little longer;
we shall soon have succour!” were the cool and inspiring
words of the younger cavalier to his men, receiving
and turning aside, all the while he was speak

ing, deadly thrusts aimed at his breast by half a dozen
active assailants, who hovered around him, endeavouring,
between the descending strokes of the halberdiers,
to take him at 'vantage, but in which they were ever
foiled by his skill and coolness.

The attack, it was now apparent, was wholly made
by the small party of creoles alone that had commenced
it, who, so far from being aided by the crowd
which, a few moments before, were so vociferous in
crying out “Death to the Spaniard!” were deserted
by their presence as soon as they saw them begin the
assault, for which, loudly and fiercely as they had
shouted, they were not altogether prepared. Few
passes, therefore, had been interchanged, before the
multitude began to retire from the ground on all sides,
leaving a wide space for the combatants. When the
cavaliers discovered that the populace were seized
with fear, and, at the sound of the trumpet loudly
winding “a rescue,” were hurriedly deserting the Plaza,
and pouring through the side streets to their homes,
lest, as it seemed, their giving countenance to the affair
should bring upon them the indignation they had
sought to avert by their submission, they left their position
by the wall and put themselves at the head of
the men-at-arms, made a sudden rush upon their assailants,
and broke through them with irresistible
force.

“Cut them down, Orleannois!” shouted the tall
young chief to his adherents, as he confronted and
crossed weapons with the elder Spanish cavalier.
“Ha, Don Louis Garcilaso,” he cried, with exultation,
“we are well met!”

“Have at thee, swart creole!” answered Don Louis,
in reply.

Their swords rung together, clashed, glittered in
the moon, came together again, and the steel of the
Spaniard was broken to the hilt. His antagonist
would have run him through the body at this advantage,
had not the younger Spaniard struck up his
sword and wounded him in the shoulder. But, being

instantly called upon to defend his own person, the
creole leader succeeded in running Don Louis through
the left arm ere he could use in his defence a sword
he had snatched from the grasp of one of the foe
whom he had slain with his own hand in the charge.

“They press us hard, signor! The villains have
twice hit me! If you are saved, I am willing to die
like a bullock under their long knives! Ha! there
goes an answering gun from the brig! Ramarez will
soon send succour to us, and then, by the rood! these
knaves shall know what it is to assault a king's messenger.
Bear up stoutly, my brave halberds! By
the Cross! the noble fellows are falling fast around us!
This hath become a serious matter! Let us charge
them once more, my men! Swing your axes broadly,
and hew your way!”

“Dios é Santiago!” shouted the younger, setting
the example by leaping, sword in hand, among them.

“Dios é Santiago!” responded the few halberdiers
that remained alive; for, out of fourteen men composing
the guard, six had already fallen desperately
wounded or dead, though not without avenging themselves
upon a larger number of their assailants. “Dios
é Santiago!” they replied, and their heavy weapons
roared in the air as they swung them high above their
heads ere they let them descend among their assailants,
who, with a steadiness and ferocity of purpose
that would not be diverted from its course, met them
with courage equal to their own; and, with their long,
needle-like swords, inflicted upon them desperate
wounds, while, through their extraordinary activity,
they were enabled to elude the descending battle-axes.

At length, like a pair of noble stags worried by
hounds, the two cavaliers, with the loss of ten of their
men-at-arms, succeeded in reaching a marble fountain
in the midst of the square, where, with their backs
placed against it, they once more made a stand for
their lives. Hitherto it seemed to have been the sole
determination of their assailants to slay the whole party,
while the occasional cries of their chief showed

that, next to bloodshed, their purpose was to recover
the tokens of their submission. He now paused in
the fight, his sword entangled with that of the elder
Spaniard, and suddenly cried out, in a voice that expressed
admiration for his courage,

“Brave Spaniard! surrender the signet, and I will
withdraw my party!”

“Ha, Sieur Caronde, as methinks I heard men call
thee, art thou tired of the fight? or does the quick
sound of a hundred oars cleaving the water alarm you?
By the rood, thou shalt have the signet affixed to thy
death-warrant ere the sun rise!”

“It shall never be by thy hand, then,” returned the
other, disengaging his sword, and making a back
stroke at his head, which, glancing from his helmet,
wounded him slightly in the neck, at the same time
that he cried, “Set upon them, citizens! Let them
not bear off the signs of our disgraceful submission!
Strike for Orleans and liberty! Let not Louisiana
give herself up to Spain without dealing one good blow
for her honour!” As he spoke, he made such fierce
lunges at the cavalier, whom alone he had singled out
through the whole fray, that he twice wounded him in
the breast, while, regardless of himself, he was defending
his younger companion, who, standing in the dark
shadow cast by the fountain, was thrice nearly slain
ere he could see and parry the thrusts of two young
creoles who had set upon him.

“The vile bourgeois press us hard, Garcilaso!” he
said, having, by this diversion in his favour, recovered
his ground. “Santa Maria! brave man, you reel,
and in this moonlight your face is white as the marble!”

“The villains have done for me, signor! This demon
with the red feather has thrice put his sword
aneath my ribs.”

“You have given your life for mine, brave Garcilaso!
Thy blood shall not flow unavenged! It is the
signet he seeks. Deliver it into my charge, and they
will let you rest while they worry me.”

“No, Don Henrique, no! I feel better now! The
dizziness hath passed. I will yet avenge myself in
person on this fighting knight of the red plume.”

“Nay, Garcilaso, I will have the signet.”

“It shall not be, signor, while I have life to defend
it.”

“I will bear witness to thy valour, if thy wounds do
not!” and, thus speaking, the young man suddenly
drew the massive seal from the finger of his companion,
and placed it on the fore finger of his own right
hand.

“Knaves, behold what ye seek!” he cried, holding
it so that the broad carnelion, reflecting the moonlight,
glowed like a coal of fire. “Ha, Sir Creole! unless
you love an old soldier's blood better than this blushing
seal of your bondage, press this way with your
sword! Ha! beware that assassin, Garcilaso!” he
suddenly cried out, striking upward, as he spoke, a
stiletto in the hands of the creole leader as it was
glancing downward into the bosom of the elder Spaniard,
who, having grasped his sword anew, was about
to avenge his discomfiture. By this act, the young
man laid open his own breast to the same steel, which,
quicker than lightning, took a direction beneath his
arm into his side, the hilt at the same time closing
with such force against his chest as to cast him violently
backward. He placed his hand quickly over
the wound; his sword fell at his feet; and, with a
groan of anguish, he swooned into the arms of his
friend.

“You are not slain, signor!” cried the brave Don
Louis, forgetful of the imminent peril of his own situation
in his intense anxiety for the fate of the youth.

The lips of the young man moved inaudibly, and
then were silent; while the weight of the body on his
arm told that life was either suspended or had for ever
departed.

“He is dead!” he said, mournfully; and for a moment
his enemies seemed to respect his sorrow, for
they paused around him, resting on their swords.

“The flower of Spain—the rose of chivalry—the hope
of Castile is dead! Don Garcilaso, it is time for thee
to die! But I will fearfully avenge thee in my death,
brave and noble youth,” he cried, in bitterness of spirit;
and, as tenderly as if he had been an infant, he
laid the head of the senseless youth upon the verge of
the marble basin of the fountain. Then, with the
spirit of his words, he snatched a battle-axe from the
grasp of one of the fallen halberdiers, and with the
strength that grief and revenge lend to desperation,
made a deadly assault upon the leader of the party,
who had, as he believed, slain his young friend.

“If there be virtue in steel, demon, and strength to
wield it for thy punishment, thou shalt bite the dust
ere we part!” he shouted, springing towards him like
an enraged lion.

In an instant the creole leader, who, with his own
hand, had slain five of the halberdiers, that, one after
the other, had placed themselves between him and
their captain, drew back, but it was only to gather
nerve for the encounter; for the next moment he
bounded forward, and, ere the cavalier, unused to the
ponderous weight of the battle-axe, and weakened by
his wounds, could bring it down upon his head, he had
closed with him, and seized the suspended arm containing
the weapon while yet it was in the air, and
held it there with a grasp like iron. Quicker than
lightning he drew a stiletto from his sleeve, and aimed
it at his exposed breast. The Spaniard saw the gleam
of the sharp instrument as it flashed before his eyes,
and, involuntarily closing them, gave his soul to Heaven,
for death seemed inevitable and irresistible. But
quicker, if possible, than the movement of the creole,
were those of a third individual, suddenly appearing on
the scene of contest, who, seizing his rapid arm as the
point of the dagger pricked through the knight's vest,
and holding it not less firmly than he himself held the
elevated arm of the Spaniard, cried, with an exulting
laugh,

“Ho, ho, gossip Jules! Gobin will not have cousin

Spain hurt! Did I not treat with him, and did he not
make a knee to Gobin! Nobody shall hurt a hair of
his head!”

“Release your grasp, mischievous fool!” cried the
creole, fiercely.

“If gossip will release his of brother Spain's arm,”
said the idiot, with a peal of singularly hoarse
laughter.

“Villain! idiot! devil! unhand me!”

“Let brother Spain go!”

The creole suppressed a deep curse, and, with a
sudden exertion of strength, pushed the Spaniard from
him with such force that he reeled several steps ere
he could recover himself, and with the same hand possessed
himself of the dagger, held hitherto useless in
that confined by the idiot.

“Die, as a fool dieth!” he cried, fiercely, aiming a
blow with it at the heart of the jester.

Overcome with sudden fear at this change in their
positions towards each other, the idiot stood paralysed,
without attempting to save himself from the glancing
steel, which was directed by an unerring hand towards
his bosom. But at this instant an individual,
hitherto unseen, with a single bound, cleared the space
between the fountain and the creole, and, as the dagger
was descending, severed, with a battle-axe he had
caught up, the hand that held it close at the wrist, so
that limb and weapon dropped together to the ground.
With a groan of suffering, and uttering, with an execration,
the name of “Renault,” the creole fell back
fainting among his friends, while the stranger retired
as suddenly as he had appeared. For an instant the
contest was suspended by this event, and the Spaniard,
on looking about him, was for the first time conscious
that, of the fourteen halberdiers who, with the
trumpeter, had attended him to the council-chamber,
not one remained alive, all having fallen fighting, single-handed,
with the numbers that pressed them. But,
without reflecting upon this, he hastily retreated to the
spot by the fountain, from which the fight had drawn

him, where a moment before he had left the insensible
and apparently lifeless body of the young Spaniard for
the purpose of bearing it off, when, to his surprise, he
found it gone, a stain of blood on the white marble
alone marking the place where he had laid it. At
this discovery he uttered an exclamation of grief;
and, overpowered by his feelings, and weak from his
many wounds, tottered against a projection of the
fountain, and sunk down heavily to one knee, the keys
at the same time falling from his bosom to the ground.
In this condition his enemies saw him; and two or three
of them espying the keys, quitted their chief, and ran
towards him with shouts, levelling their swords as if to
transfix him on the spot. The sight aroused him from
the lethargy into which he was sinking; and, raising
his battle-axe, he hurled it towards them with such
force and steadiness of aim, that it sunk deep into the
forehead of the foremost, and checked the advance of
the others. He did not witness the effect of his blow;
for, as the halberd left his hand, he fell over on his
face to the earth. At this instant the barges of the
Spaniards touched the shore; and with trumpets sounding
the onset, and loud cries of “To the rescue! To
the rescue!” they rapidly approached the scene of
contest. The cavalier raised his head at the noise,
and attempted to answer the cry, but his voice failed
him; and faintly muttering “He will be avenged!” he
again fell forward insensible.