charge them, as they are men sensible to human affection, that they
separate us not! as they deal with me now, so will I requite them
hereafter: for let them not believe that they may corrupt the justice of
Heaven.”
Signor Valdorno bowed and obeyed, and after a long absence, re-appeared
with Kara Aziek.
Left alone with her husband in an apartment, which though commodious,
was still part of a prison, Kara Aziek looked round her with an air of
distraction: her eyes were wild and tearless, her hands burning as she
clasped those of Sebastian. “Here then, we are to die!” she exclaimed,
“or here we are to live, buried from our child!”
She fell senseless on his breast as she spoke, and lost for awhile all
consciousness of their misfortune. Her recovery was followed by tears
and incessant sighs, that pierced the heart of Sebastian: he sought to
comfort her, but every delusive expression faltered on his tongue, and
at length he remained silent, hopeless of success.
The silent and deep sadness of him who was still the dearest object of
her love, made Kara Aziek sensible to the cruelty of indulging her own
sorrow: she checked her sobs, she wiped away her tears, and firmly
striving to resign herself to her fate, she rose from his supporting
arms.
“We have not yet lost all!” she cried, “since we retain each other! for
that greatest of mercies, O may I be properly thankful! pardon your
Aziek my Sebastian, she is herself again.”
Sebastian embraced her without speaking, for now tenderness subdued him,
and his words were suffocated. The remainder of their night was spent in
mutual attempts at animating the courage of each other, and in secret
aspirations to the only source of real fortitude.
When the governor appeared on the morrow, to make a courteous offer of
any service he might venture to bestow, Sebastian charged him with a
second message to the senate, demanding the reason of this outrageous
treatment, and calling on them to remember the respect due to the
Lord’s anointed. He had to learn that the senate of Venice no longer
acknowledged his claim to such a title.
Morosini’s moral apostacy had given them all a plausible pretext for
violating the law of hospitality in the person of their dubious guest.
If he were indeed an impostor, no crowned head would resent their
treatment of him, no individual blame it: without having recourse to the
plea of religion, (which might embroil them with potentates professing
the same faith with their victim) they might surely detain and punish
him as a deceiver.
Most of the lords believed Morosini’s assertion, (who had nearly
persuaded himself to believe it also) that an extreme likeness had
misled him, together with some circumstances which accident might have
brought to the knowledge of the pretended King, but that in their last
interview, these were rendered of no importance, since the incredible
difference between the religion of the true and the false Sebastian,
was a decisive proof of his imposture.
Many Venetians doubted this explanation; but they were spell-bound by
spiritual terrors, and were willing to let events take their course.
Both parties united in outwardly discrediting his identity, and to that
effect they answered his message.
“Since they have taken their stand on this vain ground,” cried Sebastian
to the governor, “my hour of triumph is at hand. Your senate dare not
have the boldness or injustice to deny bringing me to the proof. I
demand to be seen of the Portuguese: I am anxious to court the scrutiny
of those who have known me from infancy to manhood. There are personal
marks about most men which may certify them to others: my body is
remarkable for them: let me be seen by those now living that have served
about my person! I challenge your republic to produce me before the
world. I invite the amplest investigation: if they find me not what I
maintain myself, Sebastian the King of Portugal, let my head be smitten
off--carry this message, sir, to the Doge.”
Fluctuating, and fearful, and interested, the Doge and his counsellors
were ill-disposed to grant the fair demands of him they were betraying:
the threats of Rome, and the persuasions of Spain, could not induce them
to deliver up Sebastian to certain destruction; but they temporized and
qualified, and by detaining the object of Philip’s alarm till he should
gain time to win over Sebastian’s friends to his views, they hoped to
obtain the dazzling favors he promised, and to avert the curses
denounced by the descendant of Peter.
Morosini already reaped the fruit of his infidelity: he was caressed by
the new monarch of Spain, and gratified with the distinction of being
admitted into the order of its grandees: he was in short become the
secret spy of Philip.
No reply was vouchsafed to the frequent messages of the injured King,
and as time wore away, his amazed mind began to admit the horrid thought
that Kara Aziek’s prophecy was indeed true, and that they were doomed to
finish their days in imprisonment together.
But what were become of his friends, and of those princes who had
entered into a compact for his sake? they had not abandoned him.
No sooner did the news of this atrocious act meet the different agents
of Sebastian on their arrival at Venice, where they had hastened to see
and acknowledge him, than they importuned the senate for permission to
visit him in his prison, in order to satisfy themselves whether it was
or was not their lawful King.
The senate were deaf to their intreaties, and again De Castro, Texere,
and Don Christopher of Crato, hastened back to England, Holland, and
France, to procure the interference of these powers with the republic,
for a sight of him who proclaimed himself their sovereign.
The Duke of Medina Sidonia vehemently urged at the court of Castille,
his abhorrence of the perfidy and injustice of the Venetians, calling on
his monarch to assert the honour of Spain, by disavowing such conduct,
and proceeding to an open investigation of the stranger’s story.
The Duke of Braganza dispatched his late mother’s confessor, the Father
Sampayo, with a written deposition of the person and natural marks of
Don Sebastian, taken from the testimony of his foster-brother and his
servants, requiring the republic to compare that description with her
prisoner.
These various exertions were now making in favour of him, who remote
from all intelligence, remained a prey to every species of misery. The
fate of these friends themselves, and of his innocent daughter, began to
alarm his fears, and the possibility of being torn from his wife and
child, filled him with dismay.
He was sitting one wintry night, (listening to the hollow wind that
swept in gusts over the Adriatic) now looking towards the chamber where
Aziek had sunk into a short slumber, now fixing his eyes in sad
abstraction on the ground, when the door opened, and Signor Valdorno the
governor appeared, followed by a person in the dress of a monk.
“This holy man’s importunities have made me hazard my office to give you
comfort, sir,” said Valdorno, speaking low--“your interview shall be
private--I will return in an hour.”
The governor closed the door, which he fastened on the outside again,
and then departed.
Sebastian had risen up: he looked earnestly towards the monk, who was
standing with his eyes fixed as wistfully upon him. Sebastian looked to
find the features of Gaspar beneath this disguise; but he saw only an
aged and care-worn visage, over which a few tears began slowly to
trickle.
“So changed! so very much changed!” said the old man in a feeble voice
after a long silence, “yet noble and princely still! Can twenty years,
then, make such havoc in manly beauty! speak to me, Sir! let me be sure
it is my lord and master Don Sebastian; on whose head I laid these
withered hands in benediction at the house of the Duchess Braganza, on
the day of his embarkation for Africa. Speak to me, Sir--let me hear
your voice!”
“Sampayo! good father Sampayo!” exclaimed Sebastian, falling on his
neck, and melting into weakness, “do you live to seek me? has your old
age been spared only to find your master thus?”
Sampayo wrung his hands in transport, “It is, it is my King!” he
exclaimed, while essaying to bend his trembling knee, Sebastian stayed
him on his arm. “Not so, good father! but our time is short; say whence
you come, and from whom! know you aught of my friend Juan De Castro--and
of him the most faithful, most dear, whom I sent to my kinsman in
Portugal?”
“I am but just come from Lisbon,” replied Sampayo, looking down and
lowering his voice; “your kinsman the Duke of Braganza has sent me, on
his representations, to ascertain your identity: denied admittance to
you by the senate, I have procured admittance through the humanity of
your gaoler; I go now, to re-urge the Duke’s request to the republic for
your Majesty to be publicly compared with a written testimonial of your
person, which I carry. Despair not, Sire! you still live in the hearts
of the Portuguese, and you have zealous friends. England, France,
Holland, openly demand of Venice, the satisfaction of bringing your
truth or falsehood to the proof. I lament the sad change in your
religion; but you are my dear lord and master still.”
The old man shed tears as he spoke, and devoutly crossing himself,
repeated an inward prayer for the soul of him he believed seduced into
error.
Sebastian’s countenance brightened: “All is not lost then!” he
exclaimed, “the path is rugged and hard to climb, Sampayo! but I shall
gain the summit at last. Yet talk to me of my friend! where is he? why
stays he from me at the time of my extremest need?”
Sampayo was silent: his care-worn countenance altered visibly, and
appalled Sebastian: the latter fixed a look on him, as if he would have
dived into his soul. “Why stays he?” he repeated hastily; still Sampayo
replied not, and the frightful silence which followed, was first broken
by the King.
“In the name of God, father! answer my question.”
Sampayo looked sorrowfully up, and said in a trembling voice, “Ours is a
chequered life, dear master! grief and gladness, gain and loss are so
woven together, that--
“No preparations father!” cried the King, grasping his arm with a wild
sternness, “what have I to learn?--that some horrible misfortune has
befallen my last friend?--that I am bereft of him also?”
“Yours is the misfortune, Sire! his, the blessing:” returned Sampayo,
“he is gone to everlasting joy.”
The blow was too sudden to be borne: Sebastian uttered a dismal cry, and
fell suddenly to the ground.
At the sound of his voice, Kara Aziek awoke, and starting up, ran into
the apartment: She beheld her husband seemingly lifeless, lying at the
feet of a very aged man, whose shaking hands were feebly essaying to
lift him up. She sprang towards them, she raised Sebastian in her arms,
and slackening the collar of his doublet, sprinkled his face with water:
her cares were all employed for him, but her mind was full of alarm for
her daughter, and she incoherently questioned the stranger about her
alone.
Sampayo’s answers convinced her that he knew not of whom she spoke: and
now her fears took a new direction, and she believed him a messenger of
death to her husband.
At this moment Sebastian opened his eyes; he turned them from her in
search of Sampayo, with a look of unutterable grief; then raised and
fixed them upon Heaven.
Kara Aziek’s faltering voice could with difficulty intreat an
explanation of the scene before her: Sampayo briefly repeated it. For a
more vital wound, her imagination had so far prepared her, that she
received this without that acuteness of anguish which otherwise must
have assaulted her sensibility; she merely sunk down upon a seat, pale,
speechless, and awe-struck.
Sebastian leaned against the wall of the chamber, with his head bent
down, unconsciously knocking his hand against his heart, with a violent
motion that shewed how intolerable was the pain he felt there. “Half my
life is gone!” he said, after a long and doleful silence, “he was the
dearest of my friends, for we had suffered together; he lived only in
me, doubtless he died for!”
At this thought a burst of tenderness forced the passage from his heart,
and covered his face with tears: Kara Aziek and father Sampayo wept with
him. Several times Sebastian attempted to inquire the particulars of his
loss, and as often did a passion of sorrow sweep the words away.
It was now Kara Aziek’s part to interpose herself between him and
affliction: she tenderly besought him to retire into the room she had
quitted, while she learned from father Sampayo those circumstances which
he could not hear without fresh emotion. Sebastian hastened to comply;
for he was no longer master of himself, and his grief increased rather
than subsided.
While he ran to hide his lamentations in solitude, father Sampayo
proceeded to detail the mournful event of which it was his fate to be
made the messenger.
“My royal master is already informed of the noble Braganza’s favourable
reception of his confidential agent.” Convinced by the hand-writing of
Don Sebastian, and by several anecdotes of the Braganza family, which
Gaspar Ribeiro repeated, the Duke lent all his authority to the mission
of your friend, he permitted him to use his name in every attempt to
disseminate a spirit of inquiry on this important subject through our
countrymen. Gaspar had succeeded to a marvel: aided by one Lopez Vernara
(an old inn-keeper, who testified to the return of Don Sebastian,
though he knew not at the time the royal guest he was harbouring,) he
drew crowds to follow him, calling aloud for their lawful King.
About this period the Venetian proclamation of Don Sebastian’s
existence, and their remonstrance with Spain, followed by those of other
powerful states, was known in Portugal: this circumstance substantiating
Gaspar’s assertions, caused such tumults of joy amongst the people, that
the Marquis Castel Rodrigo, who now governs Portugal as viceroy, took
alarm, and commanded the noble Braganza to deliver up the man who had
originally excited this commotion.
Braganza refused: he told Castel Rodrigo, that on the truth or falsehood
of Gaspar’s report his reward or punishment might depend: he was willing
to pledge himself for the accused’s appearance, on the event of the
examination at Venice: when if the stranger there, who called himself
their royal kinsman, were shewn to be an impostor, this agent of his
should be delivered up to the will of Spain: till then, (believing his
story) he should maintain his liberty against the whole force of Spanish
power.
To this brave answer the Marquis replied, by commanding the Duke to
attend him in private, with the person he protected, for the sake of
hearing his strange story. Braganza went: and leaving his armed escort
in the hall of the palace, ascended with Gaspar to the audience chamber.
“Pardon me dear Lady! let me breathe awhile! I am old and soon overcome,
and there are some events one cannot recal without sorrow.”
Father Sampayo paused to rest himself; while Kara Aziek, pale with
anxiety, and trembling with anticipated horror, waited all ear to catch
his renewed discourse. It was many minutes ere he had strength to
resume.
“Time will not permit me to enter minutely into the scene which
followed: the two nobles met avowedly to examine Gaspar’s evidence
without prejudice. Castel Rodrigo had professed moderation; but in
proportion to his conviction of the truth of what he wished to
disbelieve, his anger rose: he reviled Gaspar; and finding Braganza
resolute to protect his liberty with the lives and liberties of his
adherents, he lost all command of himself, called the Duke an ambitious
traitor, and aimed a blow at his person.
“The intrepid Gaspar saved my honored master from such disgrace: he
sprung forward, and with a sudden grasp, arrested the arm of the
viceroy; but his own hour was come: Rodrigo nimbly drew forth a dagger
with his other hand, and plunged it into the heart of Gaspar. He fell,
exclaiming, “Commend me to my dear lord! I die as I have wished--in his
cause.”
At this part of his narrative Sampayo stopt again; and Kara Aziek,
drowned in tears covered her face, and faintly motioned him not to
continue. Removed from the sight of Sebastian, whose grief would have
been heightened by hers, she felt privileged to give a loose to those
feelings of regret, admiration, gratitude, and affection, which the
conduct and the memory of Gaspar excited.
Her ill-suppressed sobs were not unheard by Sebastian: but he had the
resolution to remove further from the door of his apartment, sensible,
that at a moment like this, he could not bear any addition to his pains.
After a dreary interval of silence, Kara Aziek said tremulously. “Died
he indeed, happy, good father; how would this calamity be sweetened to
us, if we dare believe that Gaspar left the world with hope and comfort
at his heart.”
“The triumphant smile which sat on his pale lips,” replied Sampayo,
“assures me that he did so: that smile was still there, when his
lifeless body was conveyed to the Braganza palace, for mourning and
honourable interment.
“The brutal Marquis, satisfied with the death of his victim, opposed not
this act of my lord’s; and the lowly Gaspar Ribeiro now lies by the side
of noble dust: he sleeps in the vault of the Braganzas.”
“Ah what avails it!” exclaimed Kara Aziek, weeping afresh, “empty
tribute to the best and noblest of human beings! Honours cannot recal
him to us.”
“Yet evincing the esteem of others, they may soothe his nearer friends.”
Replied Sampayo. “I have brought with me a relic of remembrance, a lock
of his hair: my royal master may one day love to look on it.”
Kara Aziek averted her head as she stretched out her trembling hand to
receive the sad memorial: she ventured not to look at it, even while
pressing it to her lips and to her closed eyelids. Moistened by
increasing tears, she placed the relic in her breast.
A step was now heard approaching: “It is the governor,” cried Sampayo,
“farewel, dearest lady, I may not see my dear sovereign again: tell him
I go to solicit afresh--bid him be of good cheer--so monstrous an act
must arm all Europe against Spain and the Republic.” Sampayo had but
just time to salute the hem of her garment, when Signor Valdorno
appeared, and led him from the apartment.
CHAP. V.
Sebastian did not suffer Kara Aziek to remain alone: he rejoined her
with an air of desolation, which though profound, was composed. “I am
now prepared to hear all that relates to my dear friend: tell me Aziek,
how is he lost to us?”
Kara Aziek answered, with quivering lips, and the narrative she
repeated, once more subdued the fortitude of Sebastian. What love, what
grief was in his heart while he listened to the death-scene of him,
whose whole life had been devoted to his fortunes!
The visit of father Sampayo, and the event of his mission, could not
abstract his thoughts a single moment from the memory of Gaspar. But
Kara Aziek, in whom every new event excited a new apprehension, felt a
tumultuous trouble of soul, to which no reasoning could give rest.
Her daughter’s situation (of which she was ignorant) tortured her with
fear: Alas! what were the feelings of that affectionate child? and how
were they to learn whether the unexpected misfortune of her parents, had
not driven her to distraction? Since perfidy or inconstancy had shewn
itself in the character of Morosini, who should say that the Duke of
Medina Sidonia would continue his perilous protection to Blanche, and
stand the scrutiny which might follow the present inquiries of Spain?
Should Medina fail them, Blanche must fall a hopeless victim into the
hands of their enemy: and should the influence of the confederates
produce no effect on Venetian cowardice, her parents might too probably
share her wretched fate.
How sad was the prospect! treachery and alarm were succeeding to
enthusiasm and boldness: one by one, their firmest and dearest friends
were torn from them; and Kara Aziek looked at Sebastian with an
expression of piercing pain, as she thought for a moment, that ere a
little while, they might possess only each other in the world.
Times of rousing anxiety, times in which our fortunes, our comforts,
nay, our very existence, stand on the fate of a moment, are not the
periods in which the soul surrenders itself to lamentation: but
frequently when solicitude for one object is united with regret for
another, we yield to a gloomy sadness, that tinctures every thing with
the same hue, and renders the sufferer inaccessible to one cheering
emotion.
Aziek and Sebastian indulged not in sorrow, though it might be said to
embue their whole being: they tacitly agreed to give their private hours
to the memory of him they lamented, and when together, to converse but
on such topics as might benefit them by consultation.
Signor Valdorno’s indulgence tempted Aziek to suggest a hope, that by
his connivance they might escape from Venice, and she eagerly gave it
utterance.
Sebastian returned a glance of surprize and concern: “What, my beloved!”
he exclaimed, “would you have me the assassin of my own honour? To fly,
would be to avow myself the impostor they would willingly prove me:
no--I am resolved to wait the scrutiny I will never cease demanding. If
they suffer me to wear out my days in this obscurity, posterity will do
me justice, and own that I must have been the true King of Portugal: but
if I basely fly, history will rank me with those miserable madmen who
usurped my name, and perished in their folly. Trust still in Heaven, my
Aziek; my soul is anchored there.”
His eyes raised and filled with virtuous confidence, infused some of
their own energy into those of Kara Aziek; she smiled through tears, and
the glow which spread over her face, assured him that their feelings
were in unison.
Meanwhile the good Sampayo hastened to renew his solicitations to the
Doge and senators: the rank and character of his master would not permit
the Venetians to hazard refusing him admittance to their council. He was
admitted, together with Juan De Castro and Father Texere, who came to
present remonstrances from England and France.
Having briefly stated their request, Sampayo concluded thus.
“My lords! I neither assert nor deny the identity of this man, who
proclaims himself Don Sebastian of Portugal; I merely come from his
noble kinsman, to ascertain his truth or to detect his falsehood. I come
provided with a minute description of the person and bodily marks of Don
Sebastian; all of which deposed to by his foster-brother and his
confidential servant, now dwelling at Lisbon: I come accompanied by
divers persons, all well acquainted with various minute circumstances,
upon which they are ready to question him publicly, so to establish or
to disprove his assertions.
“Believe you not, my lords, that it is important for the Portuguese to
discover the truth of this man? think you that we are eager to place
ourselves under the dominion of a low-born impostor? think you that the
Duke of Braganza would resign his pretension to the succession, (in case
of failure in the Spanish line) to any other than to the real Don
Sebastian? no, my lords! we are actuated solely by respect for the
memory of him whom we have so long lamented. Examine this person, try
him before your senate in the face of Europe, or expect to have the
whole world filled with outcries against your perfidy and injustice. You
can no otherwise efface the shame of your present bold conduct than by
proving the guilt of him you detain. You say he is an impostor; in the
name of God then, hasten to make it appear; and tell your new friend
Philip III. that even his stern predecessor dealt not thus with the
pretended Sebastians of his less settled day.”
“Your holy office protects you, father!” observed the Castillian
ambassador, as Sampayo concluded, “or this licence of speech would
surely draw down on you the resentment of the republic: let that sacred
character remind you of your duty. Is it a priest of the Romish church
who thus advocates the cause of an heretic? be he, or be he not the true
Sebastian, he is an apostate, and an alien from the protection of
heaven, and we dare not stir a step in so solemn a crisis, without the
directing hand of our august oracle the Pope.