The Constant Prince. Coleridge Christabel Rose

to the joy of victory. The King and his sons embraced Enrique, and presently a messenger was sent to demand the surrender of the fortress where Zala-ben-Zala with the remnant of his troops had taken refuge, and, after some delay, terms for its delivery on the next morning were agreed upon. The inhabitants of Ceuta were to be offered the choice of leaving the city or of submitting to the Christian rule. The mosques were to be turned into Christian churches, a Bishop to be appointed, and every effort made to induce the people to adopt the faith of their conquerors, which faith the Portuguese princes were too high-minded and far-seeing to discredit by permitting cruelty, plunder, or rapine to their troops, as was too often done in like circumstances.

      So all was quiet and orderly when the sun went down, and the King retired to rest in a house near the central mosque, taking his two younger sons with him, while the other princes occupied themselves in the disposal of the troops.

      Chapter Six

      The Captured City

      “Where bells make Catholic the trembling air.”

      Royal prince though he was, Fernando had never slept under such embroidered coverlets, nor seen such hangings of gold and silver, such carving and fretwork, as met his waking eyes in the dawn of the new day. The horseshoe arch of the window framed a piece of deep blue sky, against which a gilded dome, surmounted by a crescent, glittered in the morning sun.

      Fernando sat upright and devoutly crossed himself, with a thrill of joy, as he thought how soon that symbol of evil would give place to the golden cross brought with them so carefully from Lisbon for the purpose. Presently he became aware that Enrique, still fully dressed but with the heavier parts of his armour removed, was lying asleep near the window, his long limbs extended on a coverlet of pink and silver, as if he had thrown himself down, wearied with his day of fighting. As Fernando looked round the room he heard an extraordinary chattering and screaming, a noise quite unknown to him, and, not having any confidence in the character of his surroundings, he began to feel frightened. What powers of evil might not lurk amid those unnatural splendours! Joao was in the next room, and Enrique slept through the increasing clatter, which actually sounded like spoken words in an unknown tongue; and yes, a peal of horrible mocking laughter apparently just over his head.

      Fernando could bear it no longer. He jumped up and seized his brother’s arm.

      “Enrique – Enrique, wake up! I think the foul fiend is in this room?”

      “Fernando, hark! there is some Moorish devilry here!” and Joao, looking quite pale with alarm, peeped out of the inside chamber, then fled to Enrique as a refuge. The latter awoke, considerably surprised to feel his little brothers pulling at each arm, and as they had considered it their duty, as soldiers in war-time, to go to bed in their clothes, with their long hair rumpled and their dress disordered, they presented rather a startling aspect.

      “What ails you both?” cried Enrique.

      “Enrique, listen! it is certainly the devil.”

      Enrique sat up and looked round, and presently began to laugh heartily himself. “There are your foul fiends,” he said, painting to some carving over the window, where were perched two huge green and scarlet birds with hooked bills, the like of which the boys had never seen before.

      “Are they birds?” said Joao, slowly.

      “Yes, they are parrots,” said Enrique. “Once, when I went to the Court of Castile, I saw such a one that the King of Granada had sent as a present to my aunt Catalina. Moreover I have read of them in the writings of the ancients. They were sent formerly from Africa to Rome, and these are doubtless favourites of the ladies of this house. For I suspect we are in the ladies’ chamber.”

      “But it is wonderful – they laugh,” said Joao.

      “Ay, and speak, though not in our tongue. There are wonderful things in the world that we know not of.”

      “Well,” said Joao, “since no one can tell what there may be in these Infidel places, I came to take care of Fernando.”

      “Indeed,” said Enrique; “I thought you woke me to take care of you. However ’tis small blame to you to have been puzzled.”

      Joao, not finding an answer ready, applied himself to trying to catch the parrots, and pursued them on to the balcony, while Enrique looked thoughtfully and curiously round the strange scene which he had entered in the dark two or three hours before. Presently he looked at Fernando, and smiled.

      “So,” he said, “Ceuta, praise be to God, is ours, fortress and all, for Zala-ben-Zala fled in the night, and before I came here Duarte and Pedro were there in command. It was your words, Fernando, that set us on this track.”

      Fernando blushed deeply. “Enrique,” he said, “I am not a good Christian, and I shall never be like the holy martyrs.”

      “Why not!” said Enrique. “I do not wonder that the chattering parrot frightened you.”

      “No; but I thought I would do anything in the world to win Ceuta to be a Christian city, and the day our mother was buried, while we knelt in the abbey at Batalha, I made a vow that I would give up my life to convert the Infidel, to win the world back to holy Church.”

      “I think,” said Enrique, “that you are too young to make vows save with your confessor’s permission, or what holy Church ordains for you.”

      “That is what Father José said, when I told him what I had done. He bade me prepare myself by prayer and obedience for whatever life God might send me. But I did make the vow, Enrique, and I shall keep it. I thought – and this is what I want to tell you – that it would be quite easy, for I thought I cared more about it than about anything in the world.”

      “Well,” said Enrique, as Fernando paused, faltering, but with his great ardent eyes fixed on his brother, “surely it is not now in the hour of triumph that you change your mind?”

      “No; but dear Enrique, when I thought you dead, I did not care at all about Ceuta: I would have given it back to save you! Was that wrong?”

      How little Enrique thought, as he listened with tender indulgence to his little brother’s troubled conscience, with what awful force that question would one day ring in his own ears. Now he put it aside.

      “If we were fighting side by side, Fernando, we should not hold each other back; but if it were easy to imitate the holy martyrs, they would the less have deserved their crowns. If we would seek any object earnestly, we most count the cost. But it was ill-managed that you should have had such an alarm. Never heed it. I am safe, and Ceuta is ours, and will be a Christian city soon. And now I must go to make all due arrangements; for we must confess our sins and prepare ourselves for the knighthood that is to come at last.”

      Fernando looked after him with admiring envy, as he pictured to himself a future day, when he and Joao should head such another expedition, and be themselves the heroes of it. But all vain-glorious thoughts received a rebuke when he heard Duarte and Pedro petition their father, that since Enrique had certainly distinguished himself the most in the attack, he might receive the honour of knighthood first, before his elder brothers.

      The King replied that he owed so much to his son Enrique, that he was willing to grant this request; but Enrique refused, saying that the rights of seniority should be respected; he would rather be knighted in his turn after his brothers.

      So the next morning beheld a wonderful and glorious sight. Over the fortress of Ceuta hung the Portuguese colours; instead of the Crescent on the great mosque was to be seen a golden Cross. Within all traces of the Mohammedan ritual had been swept away, an altar which, with all its furniture, had been brought from Lisbon, was erected, and instead of the turbans and the bare feet of the Mussulman worshippers were the clanking spurs and uncovered heads of the Christians; while, most wonderful of all, the sweet peal of Catholic bells for the first time woke the echoes of the Moorish city. (A fact.) For the conquerors had actually discovered, stowed away in the mosque, a peal of imprisoned bells, doubtless carried off from some sea-side church by the pirates of Ceuta.

      Then after high Mass had been duly performed, with all the ceremony