Thus ended the expedition for the taking of Tangier; and what had it attained? As far as Portugal was concerned, the loss, as stipulated by treaty, of Ceuta, by which the country set such store; the death of five hundred out of the six thousand men under the walls of Tangier, which held out in spite of the field guns used in war for the first time; the waste of money which had been only raised by the oppression of the people; and the delivery of the king's favourite brother into the hands of a cruel race.
Such was the tale which the fugitives had to tell on their arrival at Lisbon. And while the king was debating the best means of rescuing the captive, let us see how Fernando himself was faring.
Accompanied by his chaplain, his doctor, his secretary, and a few friends, who would seem to have gone with him of their own will, dom Fernando was sent by his captors to the fortress of Tangier, and closely imprisoned for several days. Perhaps the Moors may have been waiting for Enrique, who had gone to Ceuta, to deliver up the keys of the town; but as nothing was heard of him, the captives were taken next to the little town of Arzilla, further down the coast. Here the Portuguese were kindly treated by the governor, and Fernando, though the hardships he had gone through had told heavily on his health, did all he could to help his friends, who fared no better than himself, and devoted what money was left to him to ransoming those who had been for some years in captivity.
For seven months Fernando and his companions remained in Arzilla, and during all that time both he and his gaoler, Salat-ben-Salat, expected to receive answers to the many letters the captive prince had been suffered to write to Enrique respecting his promise to surrender Ceuta, where he stayed for some time after the embarkation of the Portuguese army. But after five months the only news that reached Arzilla was that Enrique had returned to Portugal; so Fernando then wrote to the king himself, imploring that he would redeem his pledge and set him free. It seemed little to ask, seeing that a treaty is considered sacred, and Duarte, from every point of view, was ready to fulfil the stipulation; but there was a strong party in the state which held that a Christian city should never be delivered up to the unbelievers, and even Enrique advised him instead to offer a large ransom and the Moorish captives then in Portugal in exchange for the infante.
Always distrustful of his own opinion, and fearful of taking any decided action, Duarte next appealed for counsel to the pope and to the kings of all the countries of Europe. They sent the politest and most sympathetic answers to his questions. No words could express their admiration for dom Fernando's patience under his sufferings, and their pity for his hard lot, but—faith with Moslems need never be kept, and at all costs Ceuta must be retained.
Thus, after all, it was the Christians, and not the Moslems, who failed to keep their word and were responsible for the death of Fernando.
At length news reached Fernando that dom John was starting with a fleet for his rescue, and then the doom which he dreaded befell him, for he was sent with his fellow-captives at once to Fez, a city far in the interior, and delivered over to Lazuraque, the vizier of the young king, a man whose name was a proverb of cruelty throughout the whole of Barbary. On their arrival at Fez, after a journey in which the whole population turned out to howl at and to stone them, they were thrust into a tiny cell without a ray of light. The four months that they spent in this black hole were bad enough, but worse was yet to follow. The little money that Fernando had left was taken from him, and heavy chains were fastened to the ankles of the prisoners, while their food was hardly fit for dogs or enough to keep them alive. But Fernando at least never grumbled, and tried to keep up the hearts of his friends.