CHAP. IX.

The countenance of the viceroy announced important intelligence: “What have I to learn?” exclaimed Sebastian, eagerly advancing.

“That I am recalled:” answered De Castro. “I am now a simple individual in Brazil. A new governor is just landed; and the same ship which conveyed him from Spain, has brought me letters from my sister of my Medina Sidonia: their contents make me welcome my recal as a harbinger”—

Here Kara Aziek springing up with a blanched cheek, caught his arm, exclaiming in a voice of alarm,

“O say not that our peaceful days are over! rouse not those thoughts, those wishes—danger, anxiety, destruction perhaps, await—ah! my Sebastian, thy looks tell me what I have to fear.”—

Sebastian received her trembling frame in his arms, as weeping and faint she turned from Don Emanuel to him; she felt that his body shook with strong emotion: he spoke not to her, but he pressed her against his heart while his eyes impatiently searched those of De Castro. The unusual animation he saw there, deceived him; his rapid imagination shot away, and seized the utmost of his wishes: in breathless haste he could scarcely articulate;

“You are recalled—a new viceroy is arrived!—Philip then is dead!”—

“Not dead, nor dying,”—replied De Castro, pained to observe the delusion his manner had excited.

Sebastian’s cheek lost its flush, and he sunk down on the couch Aziek had quitted, with such a deep sigh of disappointment, that De Castro stopped.

The King recovered himself after a short struggle, and while a blush recoloured his face, said faintly, “This is foolish in me—quite foolish De Castro!—you see how imperfectly I have quelled my character: after so many years of discipline, imagination and passion are as omnipotent as ever!—Well, tell me what you have to relate of our ill-fated Portugal.”

Kara Aziek folded her arms closely round him, in silence; as if fearful that De Castro’s next words were to tear him from her: pale and speechless she hung upon his looks.

“The situation of Europe, Sire!” resumed Don Emanuel, “affords for the first time a rational prospect of hope. The Low Countries still wage successful war against Philip; their young Prince Maurice proves himself worthy of his father; England has openly declared against Spain; the grand armada of Philip has been destroyed on her coast, and she threatens to attack his shores in return. Henry of France has been assassinated!—the Protestant King of Navarre is his successor. The Catholic league thus shaken, France, England, Holland, Sweden, and the petty states of Germany all professing the same faith with my sovereign, all hostile to the religious opinions and political views of the relentless bigot, may we not conclude, that to seat a protestant prince on the throne of Portugal will be considered by them as an act of sound policy?”

Don Emanuel paused, and his temperate eyes met the fixed ones of Sebastian; how much was in them!—Animated by their kindling expression, he went on.

“These are the hopes which make me hail my recal: I shall be enabled to ascertain the situation, and to feel the pulse of the Portuguese. After satisfying myself on these points, it is my intention to pass into England or into France, as circumstances may direct; and there, should my sovereign approve the bold design, I may unfold the plan of a quadruple alliance between the four Protestant powers, which could not fail of crushing the general tyrant, and giving peace to Europe.—O Sire! might I but live to be instrumental in bringing you back to your people; might I but live to see a Portuguese Prince wear the crown so long usurped by the very fiend of intolerance, I should think my life nobly filled up, and its duties done.”

As De Castro spoke he bent his knee to the earth, and kissed the hand of the King: Sebastian raised him.

“Excellent De Castro!” he said, “I have not words to thank you;—here is one that should thank you too, but love makes a coward of her.—What fear you, my Aziek! (he said, fondly turning to her, and resting his lips on her pale cheek,) I am with you—now and for ever with you:—alike inseparable in danger or obscurity, in weal or woe, in life or death!”—

The look, the voice, the words of her Sebastian went at once to the heart of Kara Aziek; she burst into a passion of tears, exclaiming, “Ah! let me ever have thee here—here in these arms!—I ask but to share thy fate, not to oppose thy duties or thy wishes.”

“I will have none in which you do not willingly share, my Aziek!” replied Sebastian, tenderly smiling on her, “be assured that the first object still in this heart, is thyself, the next our child; but my first duty is to my country.—Allow me then to risk something for her sake, at least not to turn aside from the favourable avenue thus suddenly opened to me by the hand of Heaven itself?”

“And what wouldst thou do, my Sebastian?” asked Kara Aziek, yet clinging to his arm; “wouldst thou quit Brazil, embark in a perilous enterprize, and put thy wife, thy child, thy very existence to the hazard?”

This question caused Sebastian to pause and consider what course was best to pursue. De Castro ventured to suggest some arguments against a precipitate confidence in any European power, and those arguments being enforced by the conclusions of Sebastian’s own mind, wrought him to confess that prudence commanded him to remain in South America.

Till secure of being acknowledged, received, and supported, either by France, England, or the Netherlands, it would be madness in him to abandon the peaceful retirement in which he lived; and distant as was Brazil, still it was better to remain there unsuspected, than to wander in disguise and apprehension from realm to realm.

Political bodies do not move with the rapidity of natural ones; consequently a voyage to and from Brazil might be made if required, without delaying the execution of any grand blow: De Castro’s secret mission might be diffusing itself through the different courts, till a moment arrived in which policy would demand the decisive act of Sebastian’s personal appearance.

In discussion and consultation half the night was consumed, and on the morrow Gaspar was sent for to take leave of the late viceroy.

No sooner did that faithful friend hear the momentous events which seemed conducting his King to the point for which he languished, than he gave way to the wildest joy, and offered Don Emanuel to accompany him if needful, to the remotest corner of Europe.

Still more endeared by these testimonies of attachment, Sebastian would not endure the thought of being bereaved of two friends at once; and Don Emanuel deemed it imprudent to return home accompanied by one who might be recollected in Portugal as the man who had asserted his sovereign’s existence in Africa.

He now bade farewel to Cachoeira with some regret, but more presages of future good: as he kissed the hand of Kara Aziek, she whispered in a tremulous voice; “Adieu, Don Emanuel! justify the trust my heart reposes in you, by thinking more of your King’s happiness, than of that ungrateful Portugal which spurned him from her. In the name of God I conjure you be well assured of her penitence and resolution—be confident of the fidelity of other powers, ere you call my Sebastian from the bosom of benevolent and peaceful enjoyment, to a scene of contest. I have no ambition for this unconscious child.”

De Castro replied to the touching sigh with which she concluded, by a glance full of enthusiasm; “But I have, madam!” he said, bending to press the forehead of little Blanche, “this expansive brow must one day wear a crown; even now, it promises to be the seat of royal virtues. You must not tempt me into treason against my country; and treason it would be to withhold such a treasure from her arms.”

A faint smile shone through the tears of Kara Aziek; she bent towards her child with a mixture of pain and pleasure, for the mother was gratified by this tender compliment.

Sebastian embraced his noble friend: his looks were unusually serious, and by turns the colour on his cheek deepened and faded.

“You go, De Castro!” he said, “you go with our destiny in your hands. You know my soul—you know the tender ties which render life and liberty precious to me: once, I would have gone as gladly to death for the mere chance of recovering my rights, freeing my people, and regaining power to punish her oppressor, as I would have hasted to my bridal hour; but now, these dear objects, these more precious parts of myself, in whom I breathe, live, and enjoy, tug at my heartstrings, and make a coward of me!”

Sebastian stopt to recover voice, for a tide of tenderness subdued him. After a moment he resumed. “Think of them in all your actions: be just to them, as to Portugal: let your zeal for each be equally balanced, and then whatever be the requisitions you may demand of my domestic security, I will implicitly comply with them. I am ready to risk much for my people if they be worthy the risk; but I will not sacrifice all to a capricious or ungrateful nobility.”

Kara Aziek snatched her husband’s hand to her lips, with an exclamation of joy: Sebastian turned on her a look expressive of his soul.

De Castro gave the promise desired of him, settled the cypher with which they were to correspond on political subjects, and taking a gracious leave of Gaspar, was about to depart, when Sebastian called him back.

“Stay awhile, Don Emanuel,” he said, “I had forgotten to give you a passport to Sir Anthony Shirley. This ring, for which I exchanged one bestowed on me by my Aziek, will recall me to him as the Knight of the Cross; and through his testimony perhaps, your romance may obtain an accredited hearing from the Queen of England. Tell the generous Englishman how truly, how warmly I remember him; tell him that the memory of his noble confidence at a time when everything conspired to make suspicion almost a virtue, will never leave my heart!

“Shirley, who knew my past abhorrence of those pure doctrines I would now die to defend, may doubt my present sincerity; but you, De Castro, must clear me from the imputation of deserting the worship of my fathers, through political motives.

“Fixed for an indefinite period in this land where every Portuguese considers me as a strange and unhallowed, though perhaps, benevolent person, policy would have bidden me shew an excessive zeal for the faith of Rome: instead of that, I have risked my personal safety, and have been grievously persecuted and traversed by those severe ecclesiastics whom your authority was not sufficient to silence.

“As it is, I expect that this alteration in my religious opinions, so far from assisting me to my throne, will prove a bar to my progress: my people may apprehend persecution from me.—Did they but read my heart!”

The King having paused, De Castro ventured to speak. “My voice, Sire! shall not slumber, believe me; happily the Portuguese have been used to respect my voice; and since they hear the same temperate profession of our national religion, from the man who has lived above seven years in precious friendship with his sovereign, they will learn to understand that what he believes himself, he wishes not to force on others—adieu, my honoured liege! when we meet again”—

Don Emanuel could not proceed further: he threw himself once more at the feet of his King, who bending to raise and embrace him, repeated in a low voice, “when we meet again! De Castro, what a volume for thought, is there in those few words!”

Sebastian still held Don Emanuel, but he ceased to see him: his mind fell back on itself, and plunged in a deep reverie, he remained many minutes standing in the same fixed attitude, when the soft touch of Kara Aziek recalled him to recollection.

Starting at the gentle pressure of that dear hand, he recovered himself with a pensive smile, and returned the parting benediction of De Castro.

Don Emanuel’s composed features now for the first time assumed an appearance of great emotion; his face was whiter than death, and his words inarticulate: he looked as if suddenly overcome with a painful presentiment.

In truth, Sebastian’s expression had excited in him some apprehension for the fate of his purposed embassy, and the possibility of failure pierced him to the heart: he looked at his King, and the idea that they were never to meet again, crossed him like a horrid phantom. Again he kissed his hands, and hurrying out of the apartments, departed for ever from Cachoeira.