“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.”