The dervise now and then came to watch his slumbers, but staid not to disturb them: whenever his patient awaked, he administered to him small portions of Tourkia bread melted in wine, (which was easily swallowed thus dissolved) and gently replacing his head upon the cushion of the mattrass, watched to see him sink again into his medicinal slumber.
The sun was at its meridian height the next day, when the king of Portugal fully awoke: the good mussulman sat by his bed-side. “How dost thou feel, my son?” he asked with an air of compassion.
Sebastian drew a sigh from the very depths of his heart. “As one,” he said, after a long pause; “as one deprived of all that makes life precious. Tell me, father, what have become of the Christians? I have yet one Portuguese in Africa?”
“Alas, my son!” replied the dervise, “they are all slain or taken captives; but the great Muley Moloch is fallen—the Xeriffs who fought against him, are also dead; and now his brother reigns in Morocco.”
Sebastian answered by a heavy groan, and threw himself back upon his mattrass: the slaughter of his people, pierced him with unutterable grief; though the consciousness of pious motives, and the certainty that treachery alone had produced defeat, served to reconcile him to himself.
Oppressed with apprehensions for the fate of Stukeley, and overcome with the remembrance of many of his followers whom he had loved, and had seen fall, the unhappy King uttered such deep and doleful groans, that the dervise believing him concerned at the prospect of slavery, bade him be of good cheer, and rest assured that he was still free.
“You are not fallen into the hands of a master, but of a friend,” said the aged man, “I will but detain you, Sir Knight, till I have healed your wounds, and then, with the blessing of our holy prophet, we will journey together to the castle of Tangier: it will not be the first time that Abensallah has conducted an unhappy christian to his countrymen.”
“And art thou a Mahometan?” exclaimed Sebastian, half raising himself with surprise, “how is it that thou breathest the very spirit of our benevolent faith?”
“The same God which spake through the lips of thy Sidie Messika,” replied the dervise, “inspires the hearts of all good men: besides, we venerate thy prophet’s moral laws, though Mahomet, a greater prophet than he, arose to outshine his brightness, as he had before outshone that of Moses. We are not so unlike in our faith, young soldier, but we might live in brotherhood on the earth. Would to God! that thy king, Sebastian, had studied his prophet’s laws more, and his spiritual superior’s less!”
“Hold, Moor!” cried the King, “I must not hear you impeach the authority of the representative of St. Peter.”