The Constant Prince

But although food had been given them and somewhat more decent clothes, and they had been allowed to wash off their prison-stains before meeting the eyes of their fellows, they sat blinking at the light and staring at each other, feeling as if they were the ghosts of the men who three months before had entered that gloomy dungeon, so terrible had been its effect on them. As the slave-drivers perceived that even the strongest of them were really incapable of any active exertion, they were desired to sort the great heaps of flowers that had been thrown down in a shady spot, “and to feast their eyes on their master’s magnificence.” Soon they were told their work would be daily in the royal gardens.

At another time all would have chafed bitterly at so effeminate an occupation; but now air, light, and employment of any sort were so enchanting to them that these bearded European nobles picked away contentedly at the flowers, and Father José sorted the red roses from the white with positive pleasure, while young Manoel, who had failed much of late, fell asleep with a smile on his face; and Fernando, twining the flowers round his fingers, told how his mother, Queen Philippa, had described to him and to João how the maidens of England would deck a pole with flowers and dance round it on the first of May.

Suddenly rushing out towards them from an inner court, laughing and chattering, their veils pulled carelessly half over their faces, came a party of young girls.

“More flowers – flowers! Slaves, bring them hither!” cried the foremost, imperatively; then as the prisoners rose to comply, she recoiled with a scream at the ghastly figures that sat among the gorgeous summer flowers.

“Make your obeisance to me,” said a Moor, coming up, as he struck Fernando across the shoulders with his staff; while Manoel, weak as he was, sprang at him like a wild cat.

“Ho, fetters here! – Villains, you resist?”

“No no!” cried the lady. “They cannot work so fast in fetters. The princesses want flowers – more flowers;” and the girls flew back to their garden, followed by some of the Portuguese.

The seclusion of the Moorish women was not so complete as to forbid occasional intercourse with the other sex, slaves especially; and presently the foremost girl came scudding back again to where Fernando lay, holding something in both her hands.

“Poor Christian,” she said, “here is some milk for you. Muley is cruel to strike you. Shall I ask Princess Hinda to beg the king to cut his head off?”

Fernando had acquired enough of the Moorish language to understand her, and negatived this alarming proposal decidedly, while he thanked her for the milk, saying —

“I would not be so discourteous, lady, as to sit in your presence, but that I cannot rise.”

“I suppose that is because they ill-use you,” she said, sorrowfully. “Look,” taking a heap of flowers and laying them beside him, “now Muley will think you have sorted those. What do they call you?”

“Selim,” said Fernando; for though it was well known who he was, like all the rest he had a slave’s name.

“Perhaps you will work for my princess,” said the girl; “she will be kind to you.”

“Leila, Leila?” cried a voice, and, snatching up a handful of flowers, she ran off in haste.

The preparations were soon made, and the fête proceeded, like a dream of Eastern splendour and profusion. Thousands of lamps, as the twilight fell, shone among the flowers. The slave-girls danced wonderful and graceful figures before the guests, and the Portuguese prisoners, with other slaves, held long garlands in a circle to enclose a space for the dancers, their pale, haggard faces showing in strange contrast to their surroundings. Zala-ben-Zala was the chief of the guests. As he walked round to survey the dancing, he paused opposite to Fernando and addressed him —

“So, slave?” he said, scornfully, “how like you this work? Is this fit service for a Prince of Portugal?”

“No,” said Fernando; “nor fit treatment for a hostage, nor even for a prisoner of war, if so you choose to regard me.”

“Will you now write and urge on your brother to deliver you – that loving brother who has let you pine in a dungeon rather than yield a fortress for your sake?”

“I will urge nothing on the King of Portugal,” said Fernando, steadily; “nor are the sufferings you choose to inflict on me worthy to change the policy of a nation.”

“You know not yet what those sufferings may be.”

“Well,” said the prince, calmly, “the worse they are, the sooner they will end in death, when your power ceases. You fear not death, Zala-ben-Zala, neither do I.”

“There are those here that will break your proud spirit yet,” said the Moor fiercely, as he went on.

But the prince’s words had not been altogether without effect. If he died from the cruelties practised on him, the power of his captors was over, and their last chance of winning Ceuta was gone. Therefore it became their aim to make his life as wretched and degrading as it could be, but still a life possible to live; and none of the party could have borne many more days in their terrible dungeon. A wretched lodging was assigned to them in Fez, their food was of the coarsest bread, their clothes of undressed sheepskins, and all day they toiled as common labourers in the royal gardens, with multitudes of other slaves, Christians of all nations, degraded by their miseries till their Christianity and even their manhood was forgotten; while, mingled with them, were dark-skinned natives from other parts of Africa, ignorant heathens.

Miserable as this life was, in that beautiful climate it was so great an improvement on the Darsena, that the poor prisoners, except Manoel, regained much of their health and strength, and Fernando was usually able to get through the amount of toil required of him, and even not seldom to help his unhappy comrades. For the only use he made of the consideration, which, as far as they dared, all the other slaves showed him, was to persuade them to live peacefully with each other, to bear each other’s heavy burdens, and not, as some of the poor wretches were apt to do, curry favour with their masters by complaining of each other. When they saw Fernando endure blows and curses for neglected work rather than betray the weakness of those who worked with him, they were ready to listen to the words he spoke to them of One Who also had endured insult and cruelty, and Who was with them through all their weary days, and the first gleam of hope came to many of them from his voice and smile.

One day Fernando, with several others, had been carrying stones and earth for an embankment near the ladies’ garden. Father José at some little distance was sturdily heaping up the burdens brought by the rest, murmuring Psalms to himself the while, Manoel slowly helping him. The times were good, for the mildest of their overseers was in charge of them, and they had passed the whole day without a blow to hurry their footsteps.

Presently Fernando beheld, leaning over the garden-wall, the same maiden who had given him the milk.

“Selim,” she called, and Fernando put down his load of stones and came towards her.

“What is your will, lady?” he said, with an involuntary smile at the fair, childish face before him.

“My little green parrot has flown away over the wall; it is there by your working place; I want it back.”

Fernando bowed, and returning, caught the parrot with so much ease as to surprise him, and brought it back to its mistress.

“It is safe, lady,” he said.

“I am not a lady, I am a slave too,” said the girl, fixing her eyes upon him.

“But your fetters are but chains of roses,” said the prince.

“Tell me,” she said, “which of the Portuguese prisoners is Dom Fernando?”

“He speaks to you now,” said Fernando, a little surprised at her accurate repetition of his title.

Leila, for she it was, coloured deeply, a whole world of memories waking in her. She put her hand to her bosom and drew out a little ornament, which she laid on the wall before the prince. It was a gold cross set with jewels, and Fernando recognised it at once.

“You are Catalina Northberry,” he exclaimed, and at the sound of the name so long unheard, the slave girl burst into tears.

“Oh, I had forgotten – I had forgotten,” she cried. “But after the flower feast I heard the king tell how the Prince of Portugal was now his slave. And I can remember the fountain, and my lord Dom Fernando, who gave us the crosses, and Nella – Nella – a little girl like me.”

“It is true, Señorita,” said Fernando; “long have they wept for you.”

“Hush! I am called. I will speak again with you,” cried Catalina, running away hastily, while Fernando hurried back, lest his absence should be found out, rejoicing at the discovery; for surely he could manage that some intimation might reach Lisbon of Catalina’s existence. Certainly if deliverance ever came for himself and his friends she might be included in it.

Chapter Twenty Two

News From Home

“And the days darken round me, and the years,Among new men, strange faces, other minds.”

The days passed on until October. Fernando saw no more of Catalina, though he still laboured in her neighbourhood; and no incidents broke his life of toil, till one day the Portuguese were sent for to the presence of the prime minister. It was part of the humiliation laid upon him that he was now and then, forced to appear in the midst of the splendid court in his slave’s dress, his hands stained with toil and fettered, as they always were, except when actually engaged in working. But spite of all this, and though his stiff limbs moved slowly and feebly, there was no air of embarrassment, no consciousness of degradation. He walked up the great hall, and looked Lazurac firmly in the face, bowing to him with the courtesy of a superior, neither shrinking nor defiant.

Lazurac burst out in sudden accents of fury.

“Now, slave,” he cried; “now you are wholly in our power. What is to prevent us from flaying you alive, beating you to death, in revenge for the perfidy of your countrymen? And now no fleets will sail to deliver you; we need fear no more from the vengeance of Portugal.”

“And why?” said Fernando, as soon as Lazurac paused.

The Moor came and stood over him, his dark face convulsed with rage, a strange contrast, with his splendid dress and infuriated aspect, to his prisoner, whose clear calm eyes were raised to his without fear or falter.

“Because the king, your brother, has died while shilly-shallying over his intentions of freeing you. Here is the news of his death, and no word of keeping the treaty. Ha! I have moved you now!”

For Fernando staggered, and would have fallen but for Lazurac’s rough grasp.

“My brother – my brother!” was all he could utter.

“Ay, there is a letter for you also; but the news is enough for you, rest content.”

“I pray you give me the letter?” said Fernando, faintly.

Lazurac laughed scornfully.

“Have you no mercy – no pity?” cried Fernando. “Offer me any insult you will, but give me the letter?”

It was the first time his calm dignity had been moved to intreaty or anger; but now he flashed out suddenly —

“You do not dare to withhold it from me? Nay, nay, I would not anger you; only give me the letter?”

Lazurac drew out the letter, with Enrique’s writing above the great black seal on the cover, and held it before his eyes.

“Kneel to me then; kneel to your master, and beg him of his favour to grant you your boon.”

Fernando drew himself up for a moment, while the other Portuguese rushed forward and threw themselves on their knees.

“Give us the letter,” they cried; “but spare this insult to our prince.”

“Rise, friends,” said Fernando, who had regained his self-control. “The shame lies not with me; and to my Master I kneel;” and he knelt, and for a moment raised his eyes to Heaven.

Lazurac flung him the letter, with a sense of gratified spite and hatred, and the prisoners were suffered to withdraw. What mattered the scene that had passed to Fernando; what mattered insult and hardship, compared to the sorrow and anguish of heart of reading of the beloved brother’s illness and death! Tears such as all his suffering had never wrong from him flowed fast as he read, and for the first time he was unable to comfort and support his followers, who all knew that a much blacker cloud had fallen on them, and that their chances of deliverance were lessened by this blow.

“My son,” said Father José, tenderly, “our beloved king suffered much grief and anxiety. We may think of him now in the rest of Paradise.”

“Grief and anxiety which I helped to cause,” sighed Fernando. “Doubtless it is well; but now, submission is hard.”

And when the prince was thus cast down, the spirits of the whole party failed utterly, and one after another fell into disgrace with their tyrants, and suffered accordingly. At last, after a second night of tears and anguish, Fernando regained the mastery over himself, and before they started on their day of toil he called his friends around him, and thus spoke —

“My friends, I think we must put hope away. It was my dear brother’s earnest wish to free us by ransom, by force, or even by the yielding of the Christian city, for which, for my part, I think our poor lives were a bad exchange. But what he could not do, our bereaved country in its hour of trial will fail to accomplish. So pardon me my share in your sorrows, my rashness first, and now that I cannot bring myself to beg our freedom at the price they ask. Could I but bear it all – could I but make in our own land such a home and rest as you deserve! But there remaineth a rest for us all, where my brother is gone before. So let us pray, my friends, that the will of the Lord may be perfectly fulfilled in us; let us in utter submission find peace at last. For there is an end to our trial, and a home from which we shall not be shut out.”

And so Fernando wholly, and the others as far as they might, gave up the restless hope of freedom, and set themselves to bear the suffering of each day as it passed, not looking to the morrow. And so there came to them in the midst of their toiling, driven lives, some still and peaceful moments, some inward consolations that carried them through.

Their lives were very monotonous, chiefly varied by the sickness of one or other, often of Fernando himself, which held them solitary prisoners in the miserable, airless lodging where they dwelt, or by a different overlooker at their toil, or a change in the part of the gardens where they pursued it. Now and then, too, they saw their old friend the Majorcan merchant, who brought them little comforts; on which occasions Fernando’s appetite was often found to fail, and he would beg some other to take his share.

They had very little opportunity of intercourse with the other slaves, by whom a chance word or look from Fernando was highly valued; but since the Moors were not all fiends incarnate, Fernando’s faultless life and ready performance of all that was allotted to him won him some favour from his masters, and with some of them a little courteous intercourse. Their lot, with its toil, squalor, and hardship, was bad indeed, but endurable when not made worse by wilful cruelties.

Soon after the news of the king’s death, Fernando and Manoel, alone of their party, were digging out the ground for some new fountains in the ladies’ garden. Their overseer was a certain Hassan, the mildest of his race, and he was superintending the other prisoners at a little distance, sitting cross-legged on a bank, smoking his hookah.

Princess Zarah and her maidens were seated at some distance, watching the alterations. Manoel worked slowly, and paused often for breath.

“Rest, now,” said the prince, “there is nothing to do here but what I can finish easily.”

“I would gladly save your highness from doing one stroke of it,” said Manoel, wearily; “but sometimes I think, sir, my sorrows are nearly over.”

“If so, dear lad,” said Fernando, with a smile, “the rest of us might envy you; sorely, as I, at least, should miss your face.”

“But for you, my lord, I could not have held out so long,” said Manoel, as, weak and faint, he sank down on the ground. The prince raised him in his arms, and looked round for help.

“Princess! princess!” said Leila, who was stringing beads for her mistress, “one of the slaves is fainting.”

“It was very stupid of Hassan not to send men who can do their work. He should whip them when they are idle,” said Zarah, indolently.

“Oh, princess! let me take him water; he will die!” cried Leila.

“If you like,” said Zarah, putting a sweetmeat between her lips.

Leila seized a jar of water, and some fruit and bread, and came towards the prisoners. She looked frightened and shy; but held out the jar of water to Fernando, who bathed Manoel’s face with it.

“He does not revive,” said the girl.

“Yes! his eyes open! – Manoel, dear friend!”

But as Fernando looked in his face, he saw that the last hour was come, and Father José far away on the other side of the gardens. He laid Manoel down, with his head on a heap of turf, and kneeling beside him, made the sign of the cross over him, and repeated the Pater Noster, while a smile of peace passed over the face of the dying boy.

Beside them knelt Leila, brought there by her sweet impulse of pity. She clasped the cross still hanging within her dress, and the long-forgotten words of the prayer taught in her childhood rose to her lips. The words were hardly said, Fernando bent down to kiss Manoel’s brow, when the end came, and with a long, gasping sigh, one prisoner was free.

“He is at rest,” said Fernando, in thankful accents, though his lips quivered as he thought how much he should miss the special love which this poor boy had borne him.

Leila stood trembling beside him, hardly knowing that she looked on death, and Hassan, seeing something amiss, came hurrying down to them, and not unkindly summoned some of the other Portuguese to bear away their comrade, allowing Fernando to follow, while he called other slaves to finish their work.

Leila was surrounded by her companions, who pressed her with a thousand frivolous questions, more amused at the exciting incident than horrified at it.

Leila shrank away from them, and as soon as she found herself alone, sat down under a tree and tried to think – tried to remember.

Long ago a strange pang had shot through her, when she had recognised in the toiling slaves her fellow-Christians. And the sight of Fernando had awakened in her a whole world of recollections; had made her suddenly feel, as well as know, that she was not of kin to the soft luxurious life around her – her kindred were these wretched toiling slaves – her faith should be their faith – in their sorrows she, too, ought to suffer.

Leila could not have clearly explained this to herself; she could only feel the strong impulse that twice had carried her to the aid of a Christian slave in distress. And now an odd sort of instinctive respect for the prince, who had been the hero of her babyhood, rose up in her mind. She had been taught but little religion to put in the place of the forgotten faith she had learnt with her sister so long ago; and the only result of being a Christian that could occur to her was miserable slavery. A great terror came over her, she tried to wake as from a dream, and ran back hurriedly to her companions.

Chapter Twenty Three

Loving Service

“Stone walls do not a prison make,Nor iron bars a cage;A free and quiet mind doth takeThese for a hermitage.”

The streets of Fez presented often a motley mixture of passengers – merchants and traders of all nations mingling with the Moorish inhabitants and with the numerous slaves.

One morning, bright with all the glory of a southern spring, a tall young man, sunburnt, and carrying a merchant’s pack, was standing in one of the chief streets watching the passers-by. First was a dark Ethiopian, heavily fettered; then several of the lower-class Moors themselves; then a pair of slender, long-limbed Italians, trudging wearily beneath a burden too heavy for them. The trader accosted them —

“Can you direct me to the lodging assigned to the Portuguese prisoners? I would speak, if permitted, with the Prince Dom Fernando.”

“Softly, Signor,” said the Italian; “it is not so we obtain speech with friends. There is the lodging for your compatriots; but all day they toil in the royal gardens.”

“That wretched hovel?” ejaculated the stranger.

“Ay, and now I recollect one of the Portuguese told me sadly, but now, that their prince was sick, so he will be within. Maybe a bribe to their warder will gain you an entrance.”

Like one in a dream, the young man moved towards the entrance of the low stone building which his acquaintance had indicated, and accosted a Moor who stood before the door.

“I am servant to Paolo, a Majorcan merchant,” he said, “who is permitted to visit the prisoners. Will the King of his grace permit me entrance?” and he dropped a purse into the warder’s hand as he spoke.

“Well, may be, if you leave your pack behind you. Who knows what it may contain?”

“Willingly, so I may take these few dried fruits to my compatriots.”

The warder sullenly unlocked the door, and ushered the young merchant into a small low room, with no furniture save a few sheepskins thrown on the floor. On one of these, in a corner, lay a figure, worn and wasted, and dressed in a torn and ragged coat of the commonest serge. His eyes were closed as if asleep, and only the delicate outline of the features, and the fair hair, still tended more or less carefully, bore any resemblance to the Infante Fernando.

“Wake! – rouse up!” said the Moor with a rough push. “House up, slave! – here’s a visitor for you.”

The prisoner opened his large blue eyes and looked up languidly.

“Just a draught of water,” he said, faintly, “for my lips are parched with this fever.”

“My prince! – oh, my prince! My lord, my lord! – oh, wretched day, that I should see this! Curses on the ruffians. Oh, my dear master!” and down dropped the young merchant on his knees, sobbing, and covering the prince’s hand with kisses.

“What! – Harry Hartsed! Not a prisoner too?”

“No, no! Alas, alas!”

“Hush!” said Fernando. “Come, good Moussa, thou knowest I am to be trusted. Withdraw but for a few minutes.”

“Well – ’tisn’t much harm can be done. I’ll get you that draught of water, since a tamer set of birds I never had in cage.” And locking the door behind him, Moussa went out.

“That man is often kind to us,” said Fernando; “but oh, Master Hartsed, what brings you here?”

“I come – I have sought your highness for months – that a word from you might right me. But oh! what are my wrongs to this? Oh, my lord! let me but share your prison, that I may wait on you and tend you. Alas, alas!”

“Nay, nay,” said Fernando, “I have no lack of loving tendance, and to-morrow I hope to be at my work again, for this is but a passing sickness, and at night my poor friends return to me. But when were you at Lisbon? My brothers! – oh, Harry, you come from home?” and the gentle eyes grew wistful, and filled with tears.

“I come not now from Lisbon,” said Harry, “and I know not what is now passing there. My lord, when you were sick formerly, you would sometimes rest on my arm – so – ”

“Thanks – thanks!”

The poor prince closed his eyes; the familiar voice and touch, unknown for so long, brought back a dream of home. Could he but sleep so, and know no waking in his dreary prison! It almost seemed for a moment as if, when his eyes opened, he should see Enrique leaning over him, and hear his loving greeting. Ah, never – never! till they met in Paradise! With a great effort he roused himself, for time was passing.

“But these wrongs of which you speak?”

Harry was silent. The boiling indignation in which he had quitted Lisbon, the rage and hate that had proved his own undoing, sank away ashamed; and it was very meekly that at length he told his tale – told of the false accusation, the quarrel with Alvarez, the anger of Sir Walter, the hasty banishment, adding, as he had never done before —

“My lord, had I been patient, it might have been otherwise with me.”

“Ah, dear friend, there is no remedy but patience for all the evils brought on us by our own rash folly. Repentance and patience. But now, have you tablets?”