re
Duarte wanted him.

In this way things went on for two or three years, during which the
plague broke out in Portugal, and people died like flies, as they did in
those days when dirt and ignorance helped infection to spread and
prevented cure. The king and his brothers did all in their power to
check it and assist the poor people; but nothing was of much good, and,
as usual, the plague was left to wear itself out, which in time it did.

Meanwhile the years were going by, and the physician's prophecy was
drawing near fulfilment. And this is how the disasters came about.

The infante--so the Spaniards and Portuguese formerly called their
princes--the infante dom Fernando grew tired of remaining idle at home,
and besought Duarte to allow him to travel and take service under some
foreign king, most likely that of England, where his young cousin Henry
VI. was reigning. 'Of course,' he said, 'if his own country needed him
he would come back at once, but the Portuguese had ever been wanderers,
and it was his turn to go with the rest.'

To his surprise Duarte's face clouded as he listened, and there was a
long pause before he spoke. Then he implored Fernando to think no more
of his cherished plan, but to remain quietly in Portugal, else wrong
would be done to both of them in the minds of men, for strangers would
hold that he, the king, treated his brother so ill that Fernando was
forced to seek his fortune elsewhere, or that Fernando was so possessed
by desire for gain that he was ready to give up all for its sake.

Fernando heard him to the end without speaking; it was plain that even
this brother, who he thought knew him best, had judged him wrongly. For
years the young man had kept silence about his desire to see other
countries, and the ruins of the cities which had once given law to the
world, and the result was that he had been held by all to be a man of no
spirit, a bookworm, content with the little duties that every day
brought him. Ah, no! the hour for those had gone by, and a freer life
called to him!

Seeing that his words made no impression on dom Fernando's resolve, the
king sought dom Enrique, praying him to use his eloquence in order to
prevail on Fernando to give up his plan. But he would have been wiser to
have left things alone, for Enrique merely turned his brother's thoughts
into a new and more alarming direction. Why take service under a foreign
king when there were Moors at hand to fight? Let them