“As God wills,” said Duarte, and words and tone vividly brought Fernando before Enrique’s mind.
And before many days were over the stroke fell; and, as some say, of an attack of the plague, which he was too weak to resist, as others tell, of the long strain of grief and responsibility, the just and gentle Duarte died, of whom all agree that he never uttered a harsh word, nor committed an unrighteous action.
“A selfless man and stainless gentleman,
Who reverenced his conscience as his king.”
He died, and with his life all the preparations for war fell to pieces, and came to an end. Portugal was plunged into a wild chaos of dispute and mis-government; the three remaining princes passed out of the clear following of clear aims that had marked their youth, into the wretched conflict, half-good, half-evil, of hand-to-hand fighting, with the necessities of every-day, till they hardly knew for what they were striving. There were miserable differences and cabals between the widowed Queen and Dom Pedro, who yet strove to act honourably by her; wild, mad accusations against these loving brothers of having poisoned Duarte, for whom either of them would gladly have died, a world of wrong and worry, from which they could not escape.
With the rights and wrongs of that unhappy story, a sadder one perhaps than the fatal siege of Tangier, we have now no concern; but some strange change must have passed over the mind of the nation, for no other effort was ever made to rescue Fernando. To all seeming, his country forgot him, as Harry Hartsed was forgotten. But Enrique, when in the intervals of his wretched life at court he went to gaze over the wide Atlantic, and plan how to penetrate its mysteries, prayed for the unknown suffering of his beloved brother, while Nella Northberry added to her prayers the name of another loved and lost one.
Chapter Twenty.
Darkness.
“For there is no way out of pain and trouble but only to endure them.”