"And you read the legend?"
"No, senor—I cannot read; moreover, it was written in old Latin."
"By whom, Senor Gil?"
"God and St. Anthony only know," replied Gil, crossing himself after dipping his fingers in a little clay font of agua-bendita that hung beside the mantelpiece.
Now Quentin remembered the words of the stranger whom he had met by the wayside cross, and whom he had last seen toiling up the mountain with the aid of his staff, as he alleged, in search of eagles' nests. He had some trouble to preserve his gravity, and probably nothing enabled him to do so but his wonder at the perfect simplicity and the good faith of this Portuguese peasant in the return of Lusitania's long-lost hero.
On inquiring further, he learned, for the first time, that there still existed in Portugal the sect called of old "Sebastianists," fondly cherishing a belief that their crusader king (who fell in battle against Muley Moloc) was detained in an enchanted island, where he was supernaturally preserved; and that they also cherished a belief that he would reappear with all his paladins to deliver Lusitania when at her utmost need!
Portugal's utmost need had come and gone; Roleia and Vimiera had been fought and won by Sir Arthur Wellesley; but still the Sebastianists believed in the ultimate return and intervention of their favourite hero, and eggs marked by the more cunning with some chemical agency, bearing legends foretelling the event, were opportunely found and exhibited: a puerile trick, which Marshal Junot, General de Ribeaupierre, and others soon contrived to turn against the inventors; for other eggs bearing mottoes of very different import were frequently found in the same places.
A belief similar to that of the Sebastianists long lingered among the Scots relative to their beloved James IV., who fell at Flodden; among the Germans, regarding Frederick Barbarossa, who filled all Asia with the terror of his name, and died on the banks of the Cydnus; among the Britons concerning their fabulous Arthur of the Round Table; and among the ancient Irish concerning some now unknown warrior named Dharra Dheeling. But it was left for the poor Portuguese to be among the last to console themselves under defeat and disaster with such delusive hopes; and thus in the year of Vimiera, "many people," says General Napier, "and those not of the most uneducated classes, were often observed upon the highest points of the hills, casting earnest looks towards the ocean, in the hopes of descrying the enchanted island in which their long-lost hero was detained."