“But oh, my dear lord! your sufferings—this wretched place.”
“I can but thank our blessed Saviour, and those holy saints who have followed in His steps, for the grace that has been given me so to meditate on their examples, and to remember their far greater sufferings, as to bear with somewhat less repining my share in the blessed cross. For what is it that I should bear rough words, or now and then a blow, when for my sake the Lord Himself was mocked and scourged?”
“And oh,” thought Harry, with bent head, “what is it then that I should be misjudged?”
“And yet,” said Fernando, “since our dear Lord knows how weak I am, and how hard it is to hold a firm heart amid slavery and cruelty, and without those whom I love, He holds me up with such a frequent consciousness of His presence, and such a blessed sense of His goodness, as is better than freedom and friends; so weep not, dear Harry, and bid my Enrique not to weep for one who has blessings of which he is all unworthy.”
Harry could only bend down and kiss the wasted hands that held his.
“My lord, I have sinned in my fierce anger,” he said; “I see it, now I know what my prince has to bear.”
“You did always know, Harry, what was borne by the Prince of Peace,” said Fernando. “But here is Moussa; maybe we shall meet again in the royal gardens; if so, pay me no respect—treat me as a slave.”
Moussa here entered with a skin of water, with which he permitted Harry to bathe the prince’s face and hands before quitting him, as he lay grateful and smiling, with a word of thanks to Moussa for his kindness.
When Harry found himself in the free air again, he staggered as if he would faint, and, hardly recovering, hurried away out of the streets of the town into a quiet spot, where he threw himself down on the ground, able to think of nothing but of the condition in which he had found the prince. When he quitted Lisbon, full of resentment and anger, he had at once resolved to seek the prince in his imprisonment, and obtain some evidence from him of his innocence. He was far too proud to go back to England with a dishonoured name, and though he believed Nella lost to him for ever, he could not bear to think that she should be taught to disbelieve in him. He was too angry to consider that his violent quarrel with Alvarez, rather than the vague charge against him, had been the cause of his banishment. After a long series of adventures, and some hardship and difficulty, he finally encountered the good Paolo, who undertook to obtain him speech of the prince, and provided the bribe for the warder. But not all the merchant’s descriptions had prepared Harry for what he saw, and he could not recover from the impression. He hung about the place where the slaves were employed, and obtained speech of one or two of the Portuguese, who were all eager to hear a word from home. They were all more patient than the other poor slaves, and had evidently learnt something from the example of the prince, who after a day or two appeared again among them, working feebly at his humble toil; a sight that nearly drove Harry crazy.