Chapter Twenty Three.
Loving Service.
“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.”