ers. His condition would
have been desperate with an able opponent, but he perfectly understood the
character of the French commander and patiently bided his time.

The opportunity came. The French, weary of the slow game of blockade,
marched from their quarters and appeared before the walls of Barleta, bent
on drawing the garrison from the "old den" and deciding the affair in a
pitched battle. The Duke of Nemours sent a trumpet into the town to defy
the Great Captain to the encounter, but the latter coolly sent back word,--

"It is my custom to choose my own time and place for fighting, and I would
thank the Duc de Nemours to wait till my men have time to shoe their
horses and burnish up their arms."

The duke waited a few days, then, finding that he could not decoy his wily
foe from the walls, broke camp and marched back, proud of having flaunted
a challenge in the face of the enemy. He knew not Gonsalvo. The French had
not gone far before the latter opened the gates and sent out his whole
force of cavalry, under Diego de Mendoza, with two corps of infantry, in
rapid pursuit. Mendoza was so eager that he left the infantry in the rear,
and fell on the French before they had got many miles away.

A lively skirmish followed, though of short duration, Mendoza quickly
retiring, pursued by the French rear-guard, whose straggling march had
detached it from the main body of the army. Mendoza's feigned retreat soon
brought him back to the infantry columns, which closed in on the enemy's
flanks, while the flying cavalry wheeled in the rapid Moorish style and
charged their pursuers boldly in front. All was now confusion in the
French ranks. Some resisted, but the greater part, finding themselves
entrapped, sought to escape. In the end, nearly all who did not fall on
the field were carried prisoners to Barleta, under whose walls Gonsalvo
had drawn up his whole army, in readiness to support Mendoza if necessary.
The whole affair had passed so quickly that Nemours knew nothing of it
until the bulk of his rear-guard were safely lodged within the walls of
the Spanish stronghold.

This brilliant success proved the turning-point in the tide of the war. A
convoy of transports soon after reached Barleta, bringing in an abundance
of provisions, and the Spaniards, restored in health and spirits, looked
eagerly for some new enterprise. Nemours having incautiously set out on a
distant expedition, Gonsalvo at once fell on the town of Ruvo