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Updated: June 2, 2025
E-chee occupied the foremost canoe with Yah-chi-la-ne and Has-se; and as they sped onward he told them at greater length than before of the tragic events of the past few days, and of the captivity of Ta-lah-lo-ko. He also told the story of his own escape, which would doubtless have interested the Seminoles greatly could they have heard it.
During that hour E-chee, who was to be their guide, had bathed in the life-giving waters of the spring and eaten a hearty meal; so that he now felt like a new man, and equal to any amount of fresh hardships and fatigue.
They had entered the great swamp, and even Réné, from the bottom of the canoe, seeing the tall cypresses meet overhead, began to suspect where they were. During a portion of an intensely dark night E-chee kept watch over the prisoners. While the guard whom he relieved was there to note the action, he gave each of the three captives a kick with his moccasined foot.
The lightning revealed to them the motionless figure of a warrior standing in front of it, and E-chee, lying flat on the wet ground, with a keen-headed arrow fitted to the string of his bow, was left to watch him. Upon the slightest alarm being given, the arrow would have found its way to his heart, and the three, taking Réné with them, would have attempted a desperate flight.
That night they encamped at the foot of the very bluff on which Réné had been captured by the Seminoles. The next morning he and his new-found friend, accompanied by Yah-chi-la-ne and E-chee, ascended the river to the fort which had lately been the scene of such thrilling events. Now, ruined and deserted, it was destined to be forever abandoned to its own solitude.
When Réné overheard some Indians talking outside the hut in which he lay, and laughingly telling each other of the method E-chee had taken to rejoin his own people, his heart sank within him, and he felt that he no longer had aught to hope for, now that his only friend amid all these enemies was dead. On the following day preparations for the great feast of rejoicing were actively begun.
Without a word being spoken, the four made their way as swiftly as might be to where the trail left the island. The guard at this point was suddenly petrified by superstitious fear at the sight of E-chee, whom he supposed to have been drowned. The figure stood in front of him, and, as revealed by a flash of lightning, was haggard and dripping, as though it had just risen from a watery grave.
Then, while all present listened with the closest attention, E-chee told of the destruction of Seloy and the capture of Fort Caroline by the Spaniards; of his own capture, and that of Réné de Veaux and two other white men, by the Seminoles; of his escape, and of the terrible fate now awaiting those still in the hands of the outlaws.
This, while it did not hurt them, expressed to the Seminole a degree of contempt that satisfied him that the new recruit hated the white men as cordially as he himself. When he had departed and all was quiet, E-chee approached the place where Réné lay bound to a tree, and lying down close beside him, he whispered, "Ta-lah-lo-ko."
The brave lad did not permit these signs of weakness to be seen, and he received some comfort by catching a kindly look from E-chee, and exchanging sympathetic glances with his fellow-prisoners, with whom, however, he was not allowed to speak. They were of the new arrivals, and on account of illness had been left in the fort when the fighting men marched away to join Admiral Ribault.
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