"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
A free and quiet mind doth take
These 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?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Then--your arm again for a moment, and I will Write--for Moussa will
soon return." So saying the prince wrote--
"I, Fernando of Avis, declare that Harry Hartsed was my most faithful
friend and servant, and that no charge of treason can be proved against
him, and I beg my dear brother, Dom Enrique, to look once more into the
matter."
"Go, Harry," said the prince, "at once to my brother. And now I have a
matter to tell you. I have found Catalina Northberry, Sir Walter's lost
child."
"My lord! Where?"
"Here, in the royal palace of Fez. She is the slave of the Princess
Zarah; but happy and tenderly nurtured. Alas! I know not whether
escape is possible for her; but she knows her name and has a kind heart.
I dare not write of her; but you might, through Paolo, obtain speech
with her, and take welcome news to Sir Walter," said Fernando,
concluding with a smile.
Harry looked as if he could hardly believe in so startling a
coincidence.
"But oh, my dear lord! your sufferings--this wretched place."
"I can but thank our blessed Saviour, and those holy saints who have
followed in His steps, for the grace that has been given me so to
meditate on their examples, and to remember their far greater
sufferings, as to bear with somewhat less repining _my_ share in the
blessed cross. For what is it that _I_ should bear rough words, or now
and then a blow, when for my sake the Lord Himself was mocked and
scourged?"
"And oh," thought Harry, with bent head, "what is it then that _I_
should be misjudged?"
"And yet," said Fernando, "since our dear Lord knows how weak I am, and
how hard it is to hold a firm heart amid slavery and cruelty, and
without those whom I love, He holds me up with such a frequent
consciousness of His presence, and such a blessed sense of His goodness,
as is better than freedom and friends; so weep not, dear Harry, and bid
my Enrique not to weep for one who has blessings of which he is all
unworthy."
Harry could only bend down and kiss the wasted hands that held his.
"My lord, I have sinned in my fierce anger," he said; "I see it, now I
know what my prince has to bear."
"You did always know, Harry, what was borne by the Prince of Peace,"
said Fernando. "But here is Moussa; maybe we shall meet again in the
royal gardens; if so, pay me no respect--treat me as a slave."
Moussa here entered with a skin of water, with which he permitted Harry
to bathe the prince's face and hands before quitting him, as he lay
grateful and smiling, with a word of thanks to Moussa for his kindness.
When Harry found himself in the free air again, he staggered as if he
would faint, and, hardly recovering, hurried away out of the streets of
the town into a quiet spot, where he threw himself down on the ground,
able to think of nothing but of the condition in which he had found the
prince. When he quitted Lisbon, full of resentment and anger, he had at
once resolved to seek the prince in his imprisonment, and obtain some
evidence from him of his innocence. He was far too proud to go back to
England with a dishonoured name, and though he believed Nella lost to
him for ever, he could not bear to think that she should be taught to
disbelieve in him. He was too angry to consider that his violent
quarrel with Alvarez, rather than the vague charge against him, had been
the cause of his banishment. After a long series of adventures, and
some hardship and difficulty, he finally encountered the good Paolo, who
undertook to obtain him speech of the prince, and provided the bribe for
the warder. But not all the merchant's descriptions had prepared Harry
for what he saw, and he could not recover from the impression. He hung
about the place where the slaves were employed, and obtained speech of
one or two of the Portuguese, who were all eager to hear a word from
home. They were all more patient than the other poor slaves, and had
evidently learnt something from the example of the prince, who after a
day or two appeared again among them, working feebly at his humble toil;
a sight that nearly drove Harry crazy.