The Constant Prince. Coleridge Christabel Rose
well as great.
The evening hour was a time of leisure, and on the deck of the vessel a group of young gentlemen were lounging about telling stories, prophesying success, and indulging in speculations as to what Ceuta would be like when they got there, while Enrique, at a little distance in his deep mourning dress, was sitting on a bench, his chin resting on his hand, and his great eyes gazing out towards the horizon, as if longing to see to the very world’s end. Fernando, who was more sociably inclined, was listening with great interest to a description of the interior of a Moorish city, given by a lively young Englishman, named Northberry, who belonged to Dom Enrique’s household, and who insisted forcibly that the Moors were in the habit of feasting on their Christian prisoners, arrayed in silks and cloth of gold, in palaces ornamented with untold splendour. Other poor slaves were forced to serve, sometimes to share the horrible banquet, and were driven to it with blows and curses.
Poor Fernando grew pale with horror, and Dom José de Alemquer, a knight of some renown, and brother to the Portuguese Prime Minister, remarked grimly —
“And with whom, Señor, have you conversed who has partaken of this extraordinary feast?”
“’Tis commonly believed in England, I understand, sir,” said Northberry. “What matter, since we are about to punish the miscreants?”
“When you are served up, may I be there to see!” muttered Dom José. “We shall find our work out out for us; it were better to prepare for it in a pious spirit.”
“Prepare! we shall prepare,” shouted another young man, enthusiastically. “We are ready to wade through rivers of blood, and tear down the accursed Crescent if we leave not one infidel found alive in Ceuta.”
“If we fall ourselves, it is a sure path to heaven,” said another.
“That depends, so said the Bishop, on whether we have a true crusading spirit,” remarked a third.
“By Saint George!” said Northberry, “I’ll strike a good blow, crusade or no crusade; and God defend the right!”
“We are sure of success in such a cause!” cried the first speaker.
“But the crusaders were sometimes defeated,” said Fernando.
“Ah, my lord, doubtless they had not the true spirit,” said Northberry, with something of earnestness, carried off by the apparent sneer.
Fernando moved away towards his brother, and, pulling his sleeve to attract his attention, repeated some of the foregoing conversation.
“Did Enrique think it possible that they might be defeated?”
“Surely,” said Enrique, “it is possible, if it were God’s will, but,” he added, colouring with enthusiasm, “I think, we are so well prepared, it is not likely.”
“But could it be God’s will that the infidels should triumph?”
“Why, yes,” said Enrique; “you do not think what you say. It is His will that we should offer ourselves to his service; but it is not always His will to give us the victory. Else there would have been no martyrdoms. But yet,” he continued, with the grave ardour peculiar to him, “there is a blessing on zeal and self-devotion. I, for one, would risk the result!”
Fernando looked satisfied, and then demanded if Enrique thought that the Moors were really man-eaters.
No; Enrique did not think so. They were very cruel and treacherous; kept no faith with Christians; but they were not, so far as he understood, savages. In fact, he hardly thought that they would treat prisoners of distinction otherwise than well.
“What else?” he added, smiling, as Fernando still looked thoughtful.
“It would be better to convert them than to kill them,” said the boy, earnestly.
“That is what I hope for,” returned Enrique. “Their crimes have deserved a just punishment; but Ceuta once in our hands, we can there show them what Christian life and Christian worship really is; and from thence I hope to send out missionaries to the lands beyond, where all is darkness. The good Franciscans will be willing to go, and who knows into what strange worlds they may penetrate?”
“I don’t think,” said Fernando, “that your gentlemen here think of converting them.”
“Perhaps not. It is the part of princes to show themselves of a more enlightened spirit than other men. We must take heed that no needless cruelty stain our arms, and especially that in our own lives we show what it is to be Christians.”
“Even a prisoner might do that, if he were very patient,” said Fernando.
“Yes, like the holy martyrs. See, Fernando, I think there is no object worth living for, but that of winning men to the service of our Lord by conquest, by preaching, by the discovery of distant lands. I long to make myself worthy of it!”
Fernando’s young heart thrilled within him, and he longed ardently for the day when he too should be old and strong enough to fight for the holy Cross. For he did not quite follow all that Enrique said, and the storming of Ceuta was, as was natural, much the distinctest image in his mind.
The sun sank below the horizon, the purple headland of Turo came into view, one by one the stars came out in the deep clear sky; while at the prow of each vessel was hung a great lantern, so that in the gathering darkness the fleet seemed almost as if composed of ships of fire. Enrique threw himself back on the bench, and lay looking up at the sky. The study of the heavens was familiar to him, and the movements of the stars, both as a means of guiding mariners and as in themselves wonderful, were a favourite source of contemplation both to himself and to his elder brothers. They were indeed among the first to find the true science more interesting than the false one, and in their study of astronomy deliberately to lay astrology on one side. He was pointing out to Fernando the different constellations that were visible, when suddenly, as they gazed upward, the dark still heaven flashed into lurid light, and the peaceful silence was broken by a loud shout of alarm. The great lantern of their own ship had caught fire.
“Back! back! Stand still,” shouted Enrique, springing to his feet, and, in a moment, he rushed forward, climbed on to the high prow of the ship, and clinging on with one hand, with the other he detached the burning lantern, and flung it into the sea. Another moment and the ship must have been on fire: as it was, the wind caught a piece of flaming framework and wafted it on to the deck at Fernando’s feet. He caught it up – it was too large to trample out, or he thought so – he could not push through the crowd that had rushed to the sides of the vessel, and he held out the burning mass at arm’s length, unflinchingly, till Northberry, turning, snatched it out of his hand, and succeeded in throwing it into the water. At the same moment Enrique sprang down upon the deck, giving orders, and, allaying the excitement, desiring torches to be lit, and calling on all to give thanks to God for the saving of their lives.
Morning and evening a solemn service of prayer and praise arose from the whole fleet, and now on board the ship of Good Hope, as Dom Enrique had named his vessel, the sense of recent danger quickened every heart to thanksgiving.
Messages came from the King and from the other Infantes, to know what had caused the sudden extinction of Dom Enrique’s lantern, and in the answering of these no one thought of Fernando till Enrique missed him, and, hastily looking for him, found him on the bench where they had been sitting, half fainting with the pain of his burnt fingers.
“I did not think of it at first,” he said; “and then if I am a soldier I must bear pain.”
Enrique could not understand how he had been hurt; and when he heard the story, declared that Fernando’s courage had saved the ship, and then turned on Northberry with one of his rare outbursts of anger. Could he not see that Dom Fernando was burnt when he took the flaming wood from him!
Enrique was habitually gentle; but there was an intensity in his displeasure when it was once roused, which was not easily forgotten.
“I hid my hand behind me; it did not hurt me much,” said Fernando, who was reviving. “Señor Northberry could not see.”
“Dom Fernando is as true a