Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/336

310 310 AFRICAN EXPEDITION OF XIMENES. PART who, independently of the odium of such a pro- ' ^ ceeding, could ill afford to part with so able a min- ister, knew his inflexible temper too well ever to resume the subject.'^ With some reason, therefore, for distrusting the good-will of his sovereign, Ximenes put the worst possible construction on the expressions in his let- ter. He saw himself a mere tool in Ferdinand's hands, to be used so long as occasion might serve, with the utmost indifference to his own interests or convenience. These humiliating suspicions, to- gether with the arrogant bearing of his general, disgusted him with the further prosecution of the expedition ; while he was confirmed in his purpose of returning to Spain, and found an obvious apology for it in the state of his own health, too infirm to encounter, with safety, the wasting heats of an African summer. Ximenes rt- Bcfore hls departure, he summoned Navarro and nuns to r ' '^'"*"'' his officers about him, and, after giving them much good counsel respecting the government and de- fence of their new acquisitions, he placed at their disposal an ample su[)ply of funds and stores, for the maintenance of the army several months. He May 2: then embarked, not with the pompous array and circumstance of a hero returning from his conquests, but with a few domestics only, in an unarmed gal- ley, showing, as it were, by this very act, the good 17 Giovio, Vita Mapni Gonsalvi, Sandoval of the prelate, " tliouglit lib. 3, p. 107. — Gomez, De Rebus his archbishopric worth more than CJeslis, fol. 117. — yaiuloval. Hist, the pood jrraces of a covetous ltd del Enip. Carlos V., torn. i. p. 16. monarch." — "The worthy brother," says