“And this!” cried Fernando, with flashing eyes, “this is what we suffer on our shores—we! princes, knights, Christians—shame—shame upon us! Better spend the last coin in our treasury—shed the last drop of our blood—better die among nations, lose all—everything—than have it so! What! we hold our kingdom undisturbed by a false peace with friends such as these! Let it go, but let us drive them from Portuguese waters—from Christian soil. I will endure it no longer; I will do it single-handed.”
Fernando stood with lifted hand and face on fire, long suppressed passion giving startling effect to his words; but suddenly his face paled and he dropped back on his seat.
“I—I can do nothing,” he said, in a voice of inexpressible melancholy.
Enrique leaned over him, and put his arm round him, as if he had been still the little brother, whose excitement he had soothed so often in early years.
“Everything in our power shall be done, good Sir Walter,” said Duarte, earnestly.
“Indeed, my lord, I doubt it not,” said Northberry. “I am sorry so to grieve Dom Fernando.”
Fernando looked up.
“Duarte, I meant to reproach no one,” he said, humbly. “My friend, I can do little for you, or any one, but pray; I will go and do that.”
“My lord,” said Sir Walter, kissing his hand, “such prayers as yours must be answered.”
Fernando shook his head sadly. He blamed himself for the outburst of feeling which had seemed to reproach his brothers for failing in a duty which he could not even attempt, and for long hours that night he knelt in his private chapel, and prayed that at whatever cost to himself the power of the Moor might be lessened and the little captive restored unharmed to her friends.