end of Henry's, struck upon the
ground impatiently a stick of orange-wood he had in his hands. "By my
faith, with this stick I would defend Ceuta from every Morisco of them
all." He was left in command, and thus kept open, as it were, to Europe
and to the Prince's view, one end of a great avenue of commerce and
intercourse, which Henry aimed at winning for his country. When his
ships could once reach Guinea, the other end of that same line was in
his hands as well.

[Illustration: GATEWAY OF THE CHURCH OF THE ORDER OF CHRIST AT THOMAR.]

The King and the Princes left Ceuta in September of the same year (Sept.
2, 1415), but Henry's connection with his first battle-field was not yet
over. Menezes found after three years' sole command, that the Moors were
pressing him very hard. The King of Granada had sent seventy-four ships
to blockade the city from the sea, and the troops of Fez were forcing
their way into the lower town. Henry was hurriedly sent from Lisbon to
its relief, while Edward and Pedro got themselves ready to follow him,
if needed, from Lagos and the Algarve coast. But Ceuta had already saved
itself. As the first succours were sailing through the Straits of
Gibraltar, Menezes contrived to send them word of his danger; the
Berbers on the land side had mastered Almina, or the eastern part of the
merchant town, while the Granada galleys had closed in upon the port
itself. At this news Henry made the best speed he could, but he was only
in time to see the rout of the Moors. Menezes and the garrison made a
desperate sally directly they sighted the relief coming through the
straits; the same appearance struck a panic into the enemy's fleet, and
only one galley stayed on the African coast to help their landsmen, who
were thus left alone and without hope of succour on the eastern hills of
the Ceuta peninsula, cut off by the city from their Berber allies. When
Henry landed, Almina had been won back and the last of the Granada
Moslems cut to pieces. From that day Ceuta was safe in Christian hands.

But the Prince, after spending two months in the hope that he might find
some more work to do in Africa, planned a daring stroke in Europe. Islam
still owned in Spain the kingdom of Granada, too weak to reconquer the
old Western Caliphate, but too strong, as the last refuge of a conquered
and once imperial race, to be an easy prey of the Spanish kingdoms. And
in that kingdom, Gibraltar, the rock of Tarik, was the most troubl