As Sebastian knelt down among these perishing bodies, his senses were nearly overcome with their noisome exhalations and ghastly appearance: some of them were half devoured by the wolves, and every trace of the divine image fearfully effaced: except by their shields and the caparisons of their horses, he could not have known his most intimate associates.
Grief and horror become now too strong for outward expression; Sebastian neither spoke nor sighed, but moved from heap to heap with fixed eyes and a wan cheek: sometimes he forgot his errand, and remained gazing on a confusion of bodies, banners, and arms, till the voice of the dervise recalled him. “This is a lesson for Kings!”—said Abensallah;—Sebastian shuddered, and at that moment felt as if his single hand had murdered every victim before him: his countenance expressed this sentiment so strongly, that the dervise sought to change the current of his feelings by suggesting, that his friend might have escaped, since they had not yet found his corpse.—Revived by this suggestion, the unfortunate monarch rallied his scattered spirits and proceeded in his painful task.
Advancing a little onward, he stumbled against the venerable bodies of the bishops of Coimbra and Porto, lying together, embracing the staff of a standard, which had belonged to the holy banner: a few paces beyond these, among a heap of swarthy moors,
“Like some white poppy sunk upon the plain,
Whose heavy head was overcharged with rain,”
lay his page, Diego. The noble boy had been killed at the moment his master’s Arabian was shot, and now lay stretched out beneath it.
At this piteous sight Sebastian’s heart was wrung with an excess of regret; he burst vehemently into tears, and bending to the fair body as he raised it, repeatedly kissed the half-closed eyes: their conversation on the morning of the battle was present to him again.—Vain prophesy! here was its fulfilment!—
Overcome with this recollection, and with the thought of Diego’s parents, Sebastian staggered as he arose, and was forced to catch at the dervise for support; another shock awaited him; his eye fell on the mangled body of Count Vimiosa: his limbs now shook violently, and the idea of Donna Gonsalva’s grief, displaced every other image. Shocked by his looks, the dervise caught his arm and hurried him away.
Insensible to any outward sensation, the King suffered himself to be led along, till suddenly starting from his stupor, he found that they were many paces from the slain. Abensallah would not hear of returning, “We must pass three nights there instead of one,” said he, “before we can examine half that woeful field.—Let us return then, my son, trusting that the same merciful providence which succoured thee, has preserved thy friend. Sorrow and fatigue overcome thee—lean on my shoulder—if we can but reach yonder tower, its walls will shelter us.”
Without answering, Sebastian turned his head back and fixed an earnest look upon the wide scene of slaughter behind them: fire kindled on his cheek, and in his eyes:—it suddenly blazed out.—“Accursed beyond hope of mercy,” he cried, “is the soul of him whose treachery caused all these to perish! from this plain their blood will cry aloud for vengeance, even at the last dreadful day!”
Exhausted with this momentary transport, the enfeebled monarch suffered his head to fall against the shoulder of Abensallah, who seized the opportunity of drawing him towards a resting place. The watch-tower in ruins, and shaded by high cypress trees, stood dark and noiseless; as they approached it, the sound of their steps alarmed some goats that had lain down there, and they bounded away: in their flight they rolled along a broken helmet, which Sebastian immediately recognized; breaking from Abensallah, he flew to an object under the tower, and beheld the corpse of Stukeley.—Throwing himself on the body and clasping it in his arms, he exclaimed, “O gallant Stukeley, and art thou too, fallen!”