Having thus rendered himself master of La Caroline, effectually displacing the Huguenots from the region which they had acquired, and maintained so long through so many vicissitudes, Melendez prepared to hurry back to his camp on the banks of the Selooe. He but lingered to review the force of the garrison, and with his own hands, fresh reeking with the blood of his slaughtered victims, to lay the foundations of a church dedicated to the God of Mercy, when he set forth with the small body of troops, which he reserved to himself from the number that accompanied his expedition, scarcely a hundred men, impatient for return, lest Ribault, escaping from the storm, should visit upon his settlement at St. Augustine the same wrath which had lighted upon La Caroline. The heavy torrents from which he had already suffered so much continued to descend as before, and the whole face of the country was inundated; his people suffered inconceivably upon the march, but the Adelantado was superior to the sense of suffering. He felt himself too much the especial favorite of God, to suffer himself to doubt that the toils and inconveniences of such a progress as that before him, were anything but tests of his fidelity, and the means by which the Deity designed to prepare him properly for the holy service which was expected at his hands. He reached his camp in safety. His arrival was the source of a great triumph and an unexpected joy. Here he had been reported as having perished, with all his army, at the hands of the French. The deserters, who had abandoned him on the route, in certain anticipation of this fate, had not scrupled to spread this report by way of excusing their own inconstancy and fears. His people accordingly passed instantly from the extremity of terror to that of joy and triumph. They marched out, _en masse_, at his approach, to welcome him as the vanquisher of the heretics; the priests at their head, bearing the cross of Christ, the conqueror, and chanting _Te Deum_, in exultation at the twofold conquest which he had won, at the expense equally of their own, and the enemies of the church. His triumphs were not without some serious qualifications. In the midst of their joy, an incendiary, as he supposed, had reduced to ashes the remaining vessels in the harbor. A portion of his garrison, a little after, showed themselves in mutiny against their officers, this spirit having been manifested before his departure for La Caroline. He was apprised also of a mishap to one of his greater ships, the San Pelayo, which had been sent to Hispaniola, filled with captive Frenchmen taken at different periods, and who were destined to suffer the question as heretics in the Inquisition of the mother country. These had risen upon the crew, overpowered them, captured the vessel, and carried her safely into Denmark.