"Sleep in peace, poor Croisier," he said, "your modest grave will not often be disturbed."
[CHAPTER XVIII]
ABOUKIR
On the 14th of June, after a retreat across the burning sands of Syria almost as disastrous as the retreat from Moscow through the snows of the Beresina, Bonaparte entered Cairo in the midst of an immense concourse of people. The sheik, who was awaiting him, presented him with a magnificent horse and the Mameluke Roustan.
Bonaparte had said in his bulletin dated from Saint-Jean-d'Acre, that he was returning to Egypt to oppose the landing of a Turkish force assembled in the Island of Rhodes. He had been correctly informed upon this point, and the lookouts at Alexandria signalled on the 11th of July that they had sighted seventy-six sails in the offing, of which twelve were men-of-war, flying the Ottoman flag.
General Marmont, who was in command, sent courier after courier to Cairo and Rosetta, ordering the commander at Ramanieh to send him all the troops at his disposal, and sent two hundred men to the fort at Aboukir to reinforce that point. That same day Colonel Godard, the commander at Aboukir, wrote to Marmont:
The Turkish fleet is moored in the roadstead; I and my men will hold out until the last man falls rather than yield.
The 12th and 13th were employed by the enemy in hastening the arrival of some battalions which were behindhand.