"He sails in dreams
Between the setting stars and finds new day."
The Queen's dying words were fulfilled. The fair wind she had promised
sprang up in time, and on Saint James's Day, 1414, such a fleet as had
never been known in Portugal before set sail from the Bay of Lagos. The
Portuguese ministers had wished to delay the expedition till the days of
public mourning were over, but Dom Joao and his sons knew better what
Philippa would have wished them to do, and did not wait an hour after
their preparations were complete. Fifty-nine galleys, thirty-three tall
ships of war, and 120 transports carried 50,000 sailors and seamen on
board; while several English ships had volunteered to join in an
expedition that promised so much glory, and was in so good a cause. For
the Pope had granted them a bull of Crusade, making the war a holy one,
and the blessing of the Church had been invoked on their arms by a
series of solemn services, immediately following on the ceremonies of
the Queen's funeral; and no doubt the grief which they were enduring
with all its chastening influences, deprived the young Infantes of none
of their crusading spirit; but caused them rather to strive more
earnestly to be worthy in their inmost souls of that knighthood which
they hoped to win at the sword's point. All had done their utmost to
further the preparation; but Enrique had shown so much skill in the
arrangements as to win for himself a foremost place in making them.
After all, the younger brothers were not left behind. Dona Isabel had
been left in the charge of the abbess of a great Lisbon convent; and it
was at first proposed to leave the boys at Lisbon with their tutors.
But Enrique and Duarte had pleaded for them, the latter urging that Joao
was really old enough for the duties of a page, and strong enough not to
suffer from hardship, and Enrique promising to take care of Fernando.
He might stay on board ship when they neared the enemy's quarters, and
the change would rouse him from his grief. A little rough living would
be much less hurtful to him than the misery of solitude and separation.
The sun was setting clear and bright over a sea of purple blue. A light
wind stirred the gay banners and devices which floated from the
mastheads, an unceasing source of admiration to the Portuguese sailors,
for they had been introduced in imitation of the more northern nations,
and were hitherto unknown in the Peninsula. The invention and
embroidery of these banners had been for a long time a favourite
employment of Queen Philippa's court. Dom Enrique's ship was one of the
largest, and all on board was well ordered, and ready for action.
"_Talent de bien faire_" was inscribed on his crimson flag, and "The
desire to do well," as the old French is said to signify, inspired him
in small things as 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 Jose de Alemquer, a knight
of some renown, and brother to the Portuguese Prime Minister, remarked
grimly--
"And with whom, Senor, 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 Jose. "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. "Senor Northberry could not see."
"Dom Fernando is as true a soldier as yourself, my lord," said
Northberry.
"I know it," returned Enrique; but he said no more, only anxiously
watching while one of his chaplains, Father Jose, who, like most
priests, was something of a surgeon, bound up the injured hand, saying
that it was after all but a trifle.
He would hardly, for the rest of the voyage, let Fernando out of his
sight; though the boy, exceedingly anxious to prove that he was able to
bear such trifling casualties of war, resolutely concealed all the
ill-effects which the adventure caused to his delicate constitution.