How different was this from his splendid setting out from Cadiz
two years before. Then everything looked bright and promising; now
everything seemed dark and disappointing. The second voyage to the
Indies had been a failure.

So, tired of his hard work in trying to keep his dissatisfied men in
order, in trying to check the Indians who were no longer his friends, in
trying to find the gold and pearls that were to be got at only by hard
work, in trying to make out just where he was and just where Cathay
might be, Columbus started for home. Sick, troubled, disappointed,
threatened by enemies in the Indies and by more bitter enemies at home,
sad, sorry and full of fear, but yet as determined and as brave as ever,
on the tenth of March, 1496, he went on board his caravels with two
hundred and fifty homesick and feversick men, and on the eleventh of
June his two vessels sailed into the harbor of Cadiz.

The voyage had been a tedious one. Short of food, storm-tossed and full
of aches and pains the starving company "crawled ashore," glad to be
in their home land once more, and most of them full of complaints and
grumblings at their commander, the Admiral.

And Columbus felt as downcast as any. He came ashore dressed, not in the
gleaming armor and crimson robes of a conqueror, as on his first return,
but in the garb of what was known as a penitent--the long, coarse gown,
the knotted girdle and peaked hood of a priest. For, you see, he did not
know just what terrible stories had been told by his enemies; he did not
know how the king and queen would receive him. He had promised them so
much; he had brought them so little. He had sailed away so hopefully; he
had come back humbled and hated. The greatest man in the world, he had
been in 1492; and in 1496 he was unsuccessful, almost friendless and