Nature seemed to have put on her mourning garments; for all was universal darkness: not a star in the heavens, nor a glow-worm on the beach, shed one ray of light to guide his little bark, as it silently floated down the river.
He left a letter with the prior, for the Marquis Santa Cruz. It was to be conveyed to Ceuta with the first messenger from the brotherhood; and would inform him of the melancholy and decisive events in Tetuan. Louis wrote fully on every subject; and told the Marquis, that his father had ordered him to take de Patinos and the Christian captives to Gibraltar, and from thence give them liberty. The Duke had also enjoined certain sums to be left with the brethren of Ceuta and Tetuan, for the ransom of other captives in the interior; while the treasure on board the galleon was to be consigned to the governor of Gibraltar, under the personal agency of Martini d'Urbino, for a general fund towards freeing the numerous Christian slaves on the coast of Barbary.
Louis closed his letter, with his father's commands respecting his return to England, and his own wish to the same purpose. But he added, he would not take so decisive a step until he could consult the Marquis, how far he might comply, without violating his pledged duty to Spain. It was therefore his design to re-visit Ceuta, as soon as he had fulfilled his commission at the British fortress; and from the experienced counsel, and unswerving integrity of Santa Cruz, shape his future fate.
But Louis was never to see Ceuta again; never to set his foot again upon the Spanish shore; nor to hear the voice of Santa Cruz, till his destiny was decided beyond the power of friendship to dissuade or annul.
A whirlwind from the north-west, caught the galleon and its newly enfranchised crew, at the mouth of the bay of Tetuan, and drove it out to sea, where it was beaten about at the mercy of the winds and waves for many days. After having been twice nearly wrecked, first on the coast of Algiers, and then on the spiky shores of Murcia, a Levanter suddenly springing up, drove them as fiercely back towards the Straits; and falling calm opposite the Bay of Gibraltar, on the tenth morning after he sailed, Louis landed at the British fortress.