in full retreat, and the prospect
was dark enough. Some of his immediate followers, indeed, at this time
turned countenance and were disposed to flee, whereupon he recalled them
to their duty with the words, "Look this way, in order that if you will
not fight, at least you may see me die." But the steady and determined
courage of the King, well seconded by soldiers not less brave, turned
the tide of battle. "The enemy took flight," says the devout Duplessis
Mornay, "terrified rather by God than by men; for it is certain that the
one side was not less shaken than the other." And with the flight of the
cavalry, Mayenne's infantry, constituting, as has been seen,
three-fourths of his entire army, gave up the day as lost, without
striking a blow for the cause they had come to support. How many men the
army of the League lost in killed and wounded it is difficult to say.
The Prince of Parma reported to his master the loss of two hundred and
seventy of the Flemish lancers, together with their commander, the Count
of Egmont. The historian De Thou estimates the entire number of deaths
on the side of the League, including the combatants that fell in the
battle and the fugitives drowned at the crossing of the river Eure, by
Ivry, at eight hundred. The official account, on the other hand, agrees
with Marshal Biron, in stating that of the cavalry alone more than
fifteen hundred died, and adds that four hundred were taken prisoners;
while Davila swells the total of the slain to the incredible sum of
upward of six thousand men.

SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER

(1821-1893)

The Northwest Passage, the Pole itself, and the sources of the Nile--how
many have struggled through ice and snow, or burned themselves with
tropic heat, in the effort to penetrate these secrets of the earth! And
how many have left their bones to whiten on the desert or lie hidden
beneath icebergs at the end of the search!

Of the fortunate ones who escaped after many perils, Baker was one of
the most fortunate. He explored the Blue and the White Nile, discovered
at least one of the reservoirs from which flows the great river of
Egypt, and lived to tell the tale and to receive due honor, being
knighted by the Queen therefor, feted by learned societies, and sent
subsequently by the Khedive at the head of a large force with commission
to destroy the slave trade. In this he appears to have been successful
for a time, but for a time only.

[Illustration: SIR SAM