k,
sooner than ride out the storm--and yet called themselves sailors!

He found Charles fully aware of the necessity for a temporary retreat,
till the army should be revictualled and reclothed. The camp was
struck: the Emperor himself watched the operation, standing at the
door of his tent in a long white cassock, murmuring quietly the
Christian's consolation: "Thy will be done"--_Fiat voluntas Tua!_
Baggage and ordnance were abandoned; the horses of the field artillery
were devoured by the hungry troops; and then the march began.

To retreat at all is humiliation, but to retreat as this luckless army
did was agony. Deep mud clogged their weary feet; when a halt was
called they could but rest on their halberts, to lie down was to be
suffocated in filth; mountain torrents swollen breast-high had to be
crossed, the wading men were washed away till they built a rude
bridge--O crowning humiliation!--out of the wreckage of their own
ships. Hasan and a multitude of Turks and Arabs hung forever on their
flanks. The dejected Italians, who had no stomach for this sort of
work, fell often into the hands of the pursuers; the Germans, who
could do nothing without their customary internal stuffing, were mere
_impedimenta_; and only the lean Spaniard covered the retreat with
something of his natural courage.

At last the dejected army reached the Bay of Temendefust (Matifoux),
where the remains of the fleet were lying at anchor. It was resolved,
in view of the approach of winter and the impossibility of sending
supplies to an army in stormy weather, to reembark. Cortes in vain
protested: the council of war agreed that it was too late in the year
to attempt retaliation. Then a new difficulty arose: how was room to
be found in a flotilla, which had lost nearly a third of its ships,
for an army which was but a couple of thousand less than when it
landed? Regretfully Charles gave orders for the horses to be cast into
the sea, and, despite their masters' entreaties, favourite chargers of
priceless value were slaughtered and thrown overboard. The famous
breed of Spanish horses was well-nigh ruined. It was but one tragedy
more. On the 2nd of November most of the troops were on board. Charles
resolved to be the last to leave the strand; but the wind was getting
up, the sea rising, and at last he gave the order to weigh anchor.
Often is the story told in Algiers how the great Emperor, who would
fain hold Europe in the palm of his hand, sad