De Soto's Perfidy

De Soto was now utterly discouraged, and he began the construction of two brigantines wherewith to communicate with Cuba. Exhausted in body and mind, he was soon prostrated by a malignant fever. Satisfied that he could not live, he ordered his attendants to carry him out of his hut into the balmy air under a wide-spreading live-oak, where he received the holy ministrations of the priests. Then he appointed Moscoso, his lieutenant, to be his successor in office and commander of the ragged remnant of his troops who gathered around him in silent grief. One bore a broken helmet, another a battered cuirass, a third a splintered lance, and a fourth a jagged sword. Some were dressed in skins, and some were half-naked. All, in person and equipment, were only shadows of the brilliant retinue who had gathered under his banner at San Lucar about five years before. He exhorted them to keep together, bade them farewell, and then died! To conceal the fact of his death, and to protect his body from desecration by the savages, his followers placed it in a trough made of live-oak; and at midnight, when darkness was intense, they sunk it to the bottom of the river. So perished the discover of the Mississippi, in the beautiful month of May, 1542, at the early age of forty-two years.

But little more need be said about this wonderful expedition. Moscoso led the Spaniards into the wilderness west of the Mississippi again, hoping to find Mexico. For a year they wandered there and then returned to the Mississippi, where they built brigantines and floated in them upon its bosom toward the sea. The once splendid army of one thousand men was now reduced to three hundred and twenty. Taking with them the beautiful young women whom they had captured at Manbila, and several of the best, horses that survived, they sailed out into the Gulf of Mexico, crossed it, and after enduring untold miseries, they reached Panuco, a Spanish settlement on the coast of Mexico, in September. They went to the City of Mexico, where they were entertained by the viceroy; and the elegant Castilian ladies at that petty court were enraptured by the beauty of the dusky Mobilian girls, whom they caressed, and feasted, and dressed in Spanish costume.

Maldinado, the commander of De Soto's ships, had waited long for him at Pensacola. He had made several voyages in search of him, and finally, in the spring of 1543, while he was at Vera Cruz, he had heard of De Soto's death on the Mississippi, and that only three hundred of his followers lived to reach Mexico. This sad news cast a gloom over Havana; and poor Dona Isabel, the wife of the great leader, who had so long anxiously awaited his return, died of a broken heart.