Part 20

For some days after hearing the news Fernando's grief, together with the stifling air of the cell, made him so ill that his companions expected that every hour would be his last. Well he guessed that shame at the result of the expedition, and sorrow for his own fate, had hastened the end of dom Duarte, and the infante's thoughts flew back to the day of the proclamation of the king, five years before, and to the prophecy of master Guedelha. One thing, however, did not occur to him--that it was Duarte's weakness in allowing the expedition which had brought about the fulfilment of the prophecy.

* * * * *

After a while Lazuraque saw that unless he meant his captives to die, which would not have suited him at all, he must free them from their dungeon, so they were sent back to the gardens. Slowly the years 1439 and 1440 wore away. The hearts of the poor prisoners grew sick, but Fernando alone never lost his cheerfulness, and kept up the spirits of the others when they were bowed down with despair.

It was in 1441 that hope suddenly sprang into life again, for the news reached them that some envoys had arrived from Portugal to treat for their release, and that the governor of Arzilla was using his influence on their behalf. Soon after they were removed from Fez near to Ceuta, where they could once more see the blue Mediterranean and feel themselves close to Portugal again. But everything came to an end because neither side would trust the other. Lazuraque, though he still preferred a ransom, part of which he could have put in his own pocket, dared not refuse openly to exchange the prince for Ceuta, now that the envoys had come for the express purpose of delivering up the fortress. Still, he could place many obstacles in the way of the fulfilment of the treaty, and declared that the keys of Ceuta must be in his possession before the infante could be handed over to the envoys. They, on their side, insisted on Fernando's release before the surrender of the fortress.

So the poor victim of ill-faith was carried back to Fez, and set to break stones with his companions. Then the plague broke out among the Moors, and each man shrank from his sick brother, and left him to die alone. As far as he might, dom Fernando sought out the plague-stricken people and nursed them night and day, often going without his own food that they might be nourished. Perhaps Lazuraque had fled like other rich men from the city, but at all events he seems to have permitted dom Fernando to do as he liked till the pestilence had run its course.

* * * * *

It was in March 1442 that Fernando was again taken before Lazuraque, and though the prisoner always told himself that he had given up hope, nevertheless his heart beat faster than usual at the summons. The Moor did not waste words, but went at once to the point.

'I have sent for you to ask what price you will pay for your freedom and that of your friends,' he said.

Dom Fernando looked at him for an instant before he answered. Long ago he and his companions had talked over the matter and decided what they could offer, if they ever had the chance. But now that the moment had come on which everything depended, his voice seemed choked, and he could not utter a sound.

'Are you deaf?' inquired Lazuraque impatiently. 'Be quick, or I shall raise my terms.'

Then Fernando stammered out, 'Fifty thousand doubloons and fifty Moorish prisoners.'

'Nonsense,' cried Lazuraque, with a scornful laugh. 'Fifty thousand doubloons for a Portuguese prince! Why, it is a beggarly sum! Take him away, gaoler, till he learns wisdom.' And the infante was led back to his dungeon.

It was no more than he had expected, yet he needed all his strength of will to help him bear the blow. By order of Lazuraque he was allowed to receive his fellow-prisoners in order to take counsel with them, and at length it was agreed that amongst them, by the aid of the king and their families, they would treble their former offer, and promise one hundred and fifty thousand doubloons and one hundred and fifty captives. This the vizier agreed to accept, and when they heard the news the prisoners fell on each other's necks and wept for joy. But for Fernando the hour of happiness was soon at an end, for till the ransom was paid and the captives landed on Moorish soil his treatment was worse than ever.

The dungeon into which he was now thrown was smaller and darker than before, and even his gaoler was forbidden to speak to him. The loneliness and silence put the finishing touch to the alternate hopes and fears of the last few months, and one day, when the warder brought his scanty supply of food, he found the prince lying unconscious on the ground. Fearing the anger of Lazuraque should his prisoner escape him by death before the money was received, he at once reported the matter, and orders were given to remove the captive into a larger cell, where he could feel the soft winds blowing and even see a ray of the sun. His companions, who were once more working hard, with the least possible allowance of sleep, were permitted to see him, and to carry him books of prayer, as he had been deprived of his own. Greatest boon of all, he was given a lamp by which he could read them.

Outside of his cell there was a sand-pit, in which some of the Portuguese came to dig sand every morning to scatter over the floor of the stables after they had been cleaned out. A tiny glimmer of light in this part of the wall showed dom Fernando that a stone was loose, and might with a little patience be moved away. It was hard work for one so weak; still, it gave him something to do and to look forward to, and prevented him, sitting all day in his prison, from wondering why no answer to his letter had ever come, and if his brothers had forgotten him altogether, little knowing that out of mere spite Lazuraque had kept back everything they had written. When these thoughts came into his head he worked away at the stone harder than ever, to deaden the pain which was almost too bad to bear. At last one day his efforts were rewarded, and he was able to take the stone in and out and speak to his fellow-captives, who, with sun and air about them, were more fortunate than he.

Perhaps he may have heard from them (for outside a gaol news flies quickly) that ever since Duarte's death his wife had given great trouble to dom Pedro by interfering in matters of government, and that civil war had actually broken out in Portugal, though happily it was soon put an end to by the flight of the queen. The expenses entailed by all this would, Fernando understood, have prevented the raising of the large ransom required; and with the lightening of his despair at his apparent abandonment came suspicions of Lazuraque. It was so much easier and happier for him to believe that the vizier, whose cruelty he knew, should be playing some trick on him than that Pedro should have left him to die without a word.

* * * * *

We cannot tell how it really happened, and why the money used by dom Enrique ('the Navigator' as he was called) in fitting out exploring expeditions was not employed in setting free the brother who had been made captive through Enrique's own folly. Certain it is that fifty thousand doubloons were all the Portuguese would offer, and now Lazuraque demanded four hundred thousand! This Fernando learnt after fifteen months of waiting, and then his last remnant of hope flickered out.

When hope was gone he had nothing left to live for, and on June 1, 1443, he was too weak even to kneel at his prayers. In vain did his companions implore that he might be moved to a larger, healthier room; the vizier refused all their petitions, and if he had granted them, most likely it would have been too late. However, the prince's physician obtained leave to see him, and his chaplain and secretary watched by him alternately, so that he was not left alone in his last moments.

Four days passed in this manner, and on the morning of June 5 he awoke looking happier than he had done since he bade farewell to the shores of Portugal five years before.

'I have seen in a vision,' he said to his confessor, 'the archangel Michael and Saint John entreating the Blessed Virgin to have pity on me and put an end to my sufferings. And she smiled down on me, and told me that to-day the gates of heaven should be thrown open, and I should enter.' So saying he begged to confess his sins, and when this was done he turned on his side and whispered, 'Now let me die in peace,' and with the last rays of the sun he was free.

* * * * *

'He that is dead pays all his debts,' writes the poet who more than any man knew the best and the worst of the human heart, but Lazuraque did not agree with him. Fernando's body was stripped bare and hung for four days from the battlements of the city, where, silent and uncomplaining as in life, it was a prey to every insult the people could heap on it. Then it was taken down and placed in a box, but still remained unheeded on the walls. How long it might have stayed there we cannot guess, but shortly after Fernando's death Lazuraque was stabbed by some victim of his tyranny, and by-and-by the remnant of dom Fernando's fellow-captives obtained their release on payment of a small ransom, leaving in Fez the bones of three of their companions who had not long survived the Constant Prince. It would seem as if his courage alone had sustained them, and when he was gone they sank and died also.

* * * * *

In 1448 dom Pedro, who had never ceased to mourn the brother he had been powerless to save, exchanged an important Moorish prisoner for father John Alvaro, secretary to the infante. Owing to various delays, it was three years before Alvaro reached Portugal, but when he arrived he carried with him the heart of Fernando, which was borne at the head of a long procession clad in black to the abbey of Batalha, where John and Philippa, Duarte, and a little brother and sister lay buried. On the way they met unexpectedly dom Enrique, master of the Order of Christ, attended by his knights, and a messenger was sent by the prince to ask the meaning of the train of mourners.

'Senhor, it is the heart of the saintly infante,' was the answer he received, and without a word Enrique turned his horse, and accompanied by his knights rode on to Batalha, where he laid the casket in the grave which awaited it.

Twenty-seven years after his death Fernando's body was obtained from the Moors, and was carried over to Portugal. With the pomp of a king expecting his bride Alfonso V., surrounded by his nobles, was drawn up on the banks of the Tagus, and behind him were the bishops and abbots of Portugal and a dense throng of people.

For long they watched and waited, and none that was present forgot the dead silence that reigned in that multitude, more solemn than prayers, more welcoming than the sound of guns. At length a ship came in sight across the bar of the river; then, baring their heads, the crowd parted, and the bones of the Constant Prince were borne to Batalha.