"Everything is at your command. What can be done? Have you any due?"
"Surely," said Duarte, "a sufficient ransom will open the prison gates."
"Horrible degradation!" cried Enrique and Fernando in a breath.
"As to that, my good lords," said Northberry, "I care not for
degradation, if I can but get my poor little maid back. Better tempest
and shipwreck. But this French vessel that brought me the news said
that the attack was made at night by a superior force, and that they
were gone in the morning beyond pursuit. So Dom Manuel sent the
wretched news back, and sailed as fast as might be for England, lest
Nella should share her sister's fate. Alas! alas!"
"And _this_!" cried Fernando, with flashing eyes, "_this_ is what we
suffer on our shores--we! princes, knights, Christians--shame--shame
upon us! Better spend the last coin in our treasury--shed the last drop
of our blood--better die among nations, lose all--everything--than have
it so! What! we hold our kingdom undisturbed by a false peace with
friends such as these! Let it go, but let us drive them from Portuguese
waters--from Christian soil. I will endure it no longer; I will do it
single-handed."
Fernando stood with lifted hand and face on fire, long suppressed
passion giving startling effect to his words; but suddenly his face
paled and he dropped back on his seat.
"I--I can do nothing," he said, in a voice of inexpressible melancholy.
Enrique leaned over him, and put his arm round him, as if he had been
still the little brother, whose excitement he had soothed so often in
early years.
"Everything in our power shall be done, good Sir Walter," said Duarte,
earnestly.
"Indeed, my lord, I doubt it not," said Northberry. "I am sorry so to
grieve Dom Fernando."
Fernando looked up.
"Duarte, I meant to reproach no one," he said, humbly. "My friend, I
can do little for you, or any one, but pray; I will go and do that."
"My lord," said Sir Walter, kissing his hand, "such prayers as yours
must be answered."
Fernando shook his head sadly. He blamed himself for the outburst of
feeling which had seemed to reproach his brothers for failing in a duty
which he could not even attempt, and for long hours that night he knelt
in his private chapel, and prayed that at whatever cost to himself the
power of the Moor might be lessened and the little captive restored
unharmed to her friends.
Fernando often pursued his devotions at risk to his own health, the care
of which did not present itself to him as a duty in the way it would now
to an equally conscientious person; and perhaps, had his austerities
been fewer, he would have been better able to follow the wish of his
heart. But he followed the light given him, and his prayers in due time
bore fruit. But not immediately; no tidings of Katharine Northberry
came to Lisbon; the sorrow narrowed itself to one sore spot in her
father's heart, while a long and dangerous attack of illness for
Fernando followed close on Dom Pedro's wedding.
Enrique put aside his pressing schemes to stay with him and to nurse
him, and as he grew better to understand the deep desire of Fernando's
heart, he resolved that before every other object he would devote
himself to carry it out.