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Meanwhile Satouriona, "lord of all that country," as the narratives style him, was seized with misgivings on learning these proceedings. The work was scarcely begun, and all was din and confusion around the incipient fort, when the startled Frenchmen saw the neighboring height of St. John's swarming with naked warriors.
The chief, at length convinced, led the party to his lodge, and entertained them with a decoction of the herb called Cassina. Satouriona, elated by Laudonniere's delusive promises of aid, had summoned his so-called vassals to war. Ten chiefs and some five hundred warriors had mustered at his call, and the forest was alive with their bivouacs.
But Satouriona, making signs of peace, and leaving most of his warriors behind him, came down into the camp followed by a band of twenty musicians who blew ear-piercing blasts upon discordant pipes. Having reached the camp Satouriona squatted on his haunches, showing that he wanted to take counsel with the Frenchmen.
Satouriona, says Laudonniere, "was wonderfully offended with his bravado, and bethought himselfe by all meanes how he might be revenged of us." He dissembled for the time, and presently sent three of his followers to the fort with a gift of pumpkins; though under this show of good-will the outrage rankled in his breast, and he never forgave it.
Gourgues told the principal chief, who was no other than Satouriona, once the ally of the French, that he had come to visit them, make friendship with them, and bring them presents. At this last announcement, so grateful to Indian ears the dancing was renewed with double zeal.
The next morning was named for a grand council, and Satouriona sent runners to summon all Indians within call; while Gourgues, for safety, brought his vessels within the mouth of the river. Morning came, and the woods were thronged with warriors. Gourgues and his soldiers landed with martial pomp.
His old enemy, Satouriona, keen as a hound on the scent of prey, tried, by great offers, to bribe Laudonniere to give Outina into his hands; but the French captain refused, treated his prisoner kindly, and assured him of immediate freedom on payment of the ransom.
In reply a hoarse yell went up from the savage host, and all the woods resounded with the fiendish noise. Thus Satouriona and his braves set forth for battle. In a few days they returned singing praises to the Sun, and bringing with them twenty-four prisoners and many scalps. And now Laudonnière made Satouriona more angry than ever with him. For he demanded two of these prisoners.
Fortunately, however, Gourges had on board a trumpeter who had been in Florida with Laudonnière. So now he sent him on shore to talk with the Indians. And as soon as they recognised him they greeted him with shouts of joy. Then they led him at once to their chief who was no other than Satouriona, Laudonnière's one-time friend. So amid great rejoicings the Frenchmen landed.
As the villages of the Thimagoas lay between them and the imagined treasures, they shrank from a quarrel, and Laudonniere repented already of his promised alliance with Satouriona. Vasseur was two days' sail from the fort when two Indians hailed him from the shore, inviting him to their dwellings.
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