Kitabı oku: «The Constant Prince», sayfa 11
The princess was tired of her, and when a sum of money large enough to purchase a ruby on which she had set her fancy was offered, Jussuf having at the same time fallen into disgrace for neglecting some trifling order, Leila, with hardly a farewell, scared and half reluctant, was handed over to the unknown Christians who were to conduct her to Lisbon.
She was passive in the bewilderment of change and novelty; her few words of Portuguese failed her utterly; her father’s welcoming kiss made her tremble and hide her face; and though she returned Nella’s embraces, and smiled when her sister dressed her in clothes like her own, and called her Kate, it was with a bewildered surprise.
Dom Enrique asked to see her, knowing enough of the Moorish tongue to question her as to all she could tell of his dear brother; and when she saw him she threw herself at his feet and kissed his hand, with an abandonment unlike indeed to Nella’s stately greeting.
But Enrique won from her the story of the blow she had borne for Fernando’s sake, and thenceforth she was to him an object of entire admiration and reverence.
In order that she might learn the duties of her religion and accustom herself a little to the life of a Christian lady, she was sent to a convent, and there she was far more at home than in her father’s house, learned to speak Portuguese slowly and with difficulty, and practised with great docility all the observances required of her.
The nuns would fain have kept so apt a pupil altogether, and Catalina was not unwilling: the outer world was too strange to be a happy one.
But she went home on the occasion of her sister’s marriage, and there her beauty, equal to Nella’s, and the soft gentleness that distinguished her manner from the bride’s gayer, franker air, attracted the notice of Nella’s old suitor, Dom Alvarez, whose friendship, in some new turn of court intrigue, was now sought again by Sir Walter.
Here was Nella’s face, without Nella’s untamable English spirit, and the young Portuguese thought the face none the less fair for the deficiency. He asked Catalina in marriage, being assured, he said, that she was a good Christian and a gentle lady; and Sir Walter, glad to be quit of this perplexing maiden, at once agreed.
Catalina showed no unwillingness, and perhaps her gentle passiveness agreed better with Portuguese notions than ever Nella’s lively will could have done. She was loving and dutiful, and in the love of her children she was happy, knowing little and caring less for the political ambitions and intrigues which formed her husband’s life, simply believing that his part must be the right one.
Eleanor Hartsed looked differently on life, and perhaps her clear and steadfast nature helped to point the right path to her husband in the troublous days in which their lot was cast, for Harry was too much attached to Dom Enrique to desert his adopted country, and the great prince never ceased to mark with a peculiar favour those who had been among the last to love and serve his beloved brother.
But Catalina never forgot to pray for the captive prince who had taught her what it was to be a Christian; and Harry Hartsed, amid civil strife and political passion, cherished to his dying day the precious memory of having seen in the very flesh the “patience of the saints.”
Chapter Twenty Five
Victory
“It is not exile – rest on high;
It is not sadness – peace from strife;
To fall asleep is not to die;
To dwell with Christ is better life.”
In the meantime the slow years went by for the prisoners of Fez and brought no change in the main features of their lot. One or two, like the poor young Manoel, sank and died, and for these the survivors could but give thanks; but still Fernando lived on and endured. Perhaps the voluntary self-denials to which he had accustomed himself in earlier years made him better able to bear these later hardships; but certainly for seven long years he bore his cruel lot so firmly and so calmly as to win the respect even of his jailers, while his fellow-captives loved him with such entire and devoted affection that they could hardly be miserable in his presence. They leant on him with a dependence strange towards one who indeed could not defend them “from the least insult of the meanest foe.”
Long years of hopeless slavery did not as a rule raise the character or ennoble the life. Many of the poor Christian slaves were degraded by the tyranny under which they suffered to a lower level than the masters who oppressed them, and became faithless, cowardly, and brutal. For oppression does not of itself make men heroic. It is much to say of the Portuguese that as the years went by they grew more patient, more manly, and more Christian; while to Fernando the blissful end of his sorrows shone ever nearer and more bright, till his daily trials seemed hardly felt for the inward light that shone on them.
Perhaps this strange content defeated the intentions of Lazurac, or perhaps Fernando’s increasing weakness and helplessness made him fear that he would soon lose his captive, and with him his hold over the Portuguese nation; but Fernando was one day suddenly separated from his companions and confined in a separate prison, the reason alleged being that he was unable to perform the toil exacted from him.
This was the cruellest stroke that had ever fallen on them. They felt utterly lost and forsaken, and for days could have no news of him, till at last the more compassionate Hassan pointed out to them the dungeon where he was imprisoned, and showed them a grating through which it was possible, not indeed to see him in the darkness, but to hear him speak, and then they heard his, “Ah, dear friends, this is joy indeed. You are still free to move; and well, I trust, and patient?”
“But you, my son, my dear son,” cried Father José, for once inconsiderate, as he pushed aside Dom Francisco and pressed his face to the grating, “have you food and tendance?”
“My father, I think I have not much more to suffer; I think I have never yet been grateful enough for the love that has been with me all these years. To-morrow you will come again?”
For trial had not changed the loving, clinging nature; it was the same Fernando who, long years ago, had wept at the thought of life without the beloved Enrique, who now, while he uttered no murmur and patiently endured this last, worst suffering, felt that the loss of his dear companions would kill him.
“Our Blessed Saviour was forsaken by His friends, while I am but separated from mine,” he thought, and rays of comfort stole into his soul; but he was very ill, and growing weaker every day, and his heart, though never rebellious, was very faint. Yet every day he had a cheerful word for his visitors, rejoicing in their comparative freedom, while to them the moment at the grating was the one point in the whole day.
At last one day his door was opened, and two figures entered instead of one, and in a moment Father José knelt beside him.
“My son, I am here,” he said, in a trembling voice —
And Fernando answered —
“My father, oh my father, pray for me, for my spirit fails me. I am unworthy, weak and unworthy still!”
“Well, my dear son, our good Lord knows your weakness, for He has sent me to be with you to the end.”
He raised Fernando in his arms, shocked and grieved at the change since they had parted, at his wasted frame, and face burning with fever; while, wretched as had been the food, air, and accommodation of their former lodging, they were comfortable compared to what he found in this dark and dismal place.
But Fernando looked up with the old sweet smile.
“See,” he said, sadly, “how my faithlessness is rebuked. I feared to die alone, not trusting in my Saviour, and He sends my best earthly friend to be with me.”
The sufferings of those weeks of loneliness had evidently been most severe, for the fever that had attacked him frequently confused his senses and peopled the lonely dungeon with frightful visitants while he was troubled by a sense of the failure of the trust and faith that had hitherto supported him.
But the good priest’s care lessened somewhat his physical sufferings, and his prayers and words of comfort brought back once more hope and peace, and at intervals Fernando had much to say.
“When I think,” he said, “of what have been the trials of the saints, I feel how little I have had to bear. Never have I been without such loving service as is given to few. Our very jailers have been less harsh than they might be; some, even, have been kind. Our poor fellow-slaves have made me happy by saying that my words lightened their burden, and, though with no choice of mine, my presence here has saved Ceuta to the Church: and this as a reward for the rash folly that would choose my own way of service. And now, when my poor weak spirit failed. I have the blessing of your presence. Our Lord is very merciful; for such trials as I have read of, I think, would have been more than I could bear.”
“God’s grace, my son, is strong enough always to support our weakness,” said Father José, unable to help believing that there was at least as much saintliness in this humility as in the stern fortitude of a stronger nature.
“Yes,” said Fernando, “that is my one comfort for those I leave behind. My poor companions! in their love they will grieve for me. You, father, must be their support, as you are mine.”
“My son, they will remember your constancy,” said Father José, “and – and – give thanks for your deliverance.”
“I would I could see them once more, to bid them take courage.”
And when it was indeed certain that the captive prince was dying, this favour was granted, and his fellow-prisoners were admitted for one last farewell, their bitter grief hushed, their anger stilled, by the wonderful peace on his wasted face and the light in his shining eyes.
“My Lord is indeed with me, and has given me the victory,” he said. “In this way, at least, will freedom come to us all.”
And then, with much effort, as each knelt beside him, he spoke a word of the peculiar trials of each, knowing how one shrank from insulting words, another dreaded bodily hardship, a third pined especially for home: commending them all to Father José’s care; and when he saw that the worst trial for all was grief at his loss, he said, simply, that the life seemed to have been taken from him with the loss of his dear brothers; but he had found a Better Friend still, and so would they. And so, with aching hearts, they left him; and, after a night of restless pain and fever, a great quiet fell on him, till, towards evening, as the end drew near, he lay —
“In calmest quiet, waiting his release.
‘Lord, now Thou lettest me depart in peace,’
Were the last words which he was heard to say.
Upon his left side turning, as the day
Slow sinking now with more than usual pride,
Streamed through the prison bars a glory deep and wide.
“When the last flush had faded from the west,
When the last streak of golden light was gone,
They looked, but he had entered on his rest;
He, too, his haven of repose had won; -
Leaving this truth to be gainsaid by none,
That what the scroll upon his shield did say,
That well his life had proved —le bien me plait.”
So died, on the 5th of June, 1443, Fernando of Avis, the Constant Prince – “So good a man,” said the young king of Fez, “that it is a pity he was not a true Moslem.”
And a tall tower was erected over his grave as a monument to his patience and to the triumph of the Moors over his countrymen.
Years went by, and at last the few poor survivors of that little band, Father José among them, were ransomed and released; but the body of Fernando still rested in an infidel grave.
His brother João was killed in battle. Pedro fell in a civil war, after a life which, spite of some errors, had, on the whole, been noble, conscientious, and loyal; and the only survivor of the five loving brothers was Enrique, the great navigator, the first of the discoverers of the modern world. The young Alonzo, Duarte’s son, grew up into a brave and prosperous sovereign, and, in another war with Fez and Morocco, took captive two sons of the king of Fez. Long before this the memory of the captive Fernando was reverenced as that of a saint and a martyr by the men whose lukewarmness and indifference had caused his death; and now the only ransom demanded for the Moorish princes was the body that, for thirty years, had been in the hands of his enemies.
And so, in 1473, Enrique sailed once more for Ceuta, and there received from the hands of the Moors the body of the beloved brother of his youth, which, with solemn funeral services, was shortly laid in the Abbey of Batalha, where Enrique has rested beside him for many a long year, while Christian services of prayer and praise have risen from the city of Ceuta, over which the Crescent has never been lifted again.
