he hands of the Ottoman Turks,
had at least the effect of frightening and almost of rousing Western
Christendom at large. In the most miserably divided of Latin states
there was now a talk about doing great things, though the time, the
spirit for actually doing them, had long passed by, or was not yet come.
Spain, the one part of the Western Church and State, which was still
living in the crusading fervour of the twelfth century, was alone ready
for action. The Portuguese kingdom in particular, under Affonso V., had
been keeping up a regular crusade in Marocco, and was willing and eager
to spend men and treasure in a great Levantine enterprise. So the
Pope's Legate was welcomed when he came in 1457 to preach the Holy War.
Affonso promised to keep up an army of twelve thousand men for war
against the Ottoman, and struck a new gold coinage--the Cruzado--to
commemorate the year of Deliverance.

But Portugal by itself could not deliver New Rome or the Holy Land, and
when the other powers of the West refused to move, Affonso had to
content himself with the old crusade in Africa, but he now pushed on
even more zealously than before his favourite ambition, a land empire on
both sides of the Straits, and Prince Henry's last appearance in public
service was in his nephew's camp in the Marocco campaign of 1458. In the
siege of Alcacer the Little, the "Lord Infant" forced the batteries,
mounted the guns, and took charge of the general conduct of the siege. A
breach was soon made in the walls, and the town surrendered on easy
terms, "for it was not," said Henry, "to take their goods or force a
ransom from them that the King of Portugal had come against them, but
for the service of God." They were only to leave behind in Alcacer their
Christian prisoners; for themselves, they might go, with their wives,
their children, and their property.

The stout-hearted veteran Edward Menezes became governor of Alcacer, and
held the town with his own desperate courage against all attempts to
recover it. When the besiegers offered him terms, he offered them in
return his scaling ladders that they might have a fair chance; when they
were raising the siege he sent them a message, Would they not try a
little longer? It had been a very short affair.

Meantime Henry, returning to Europe by way of Ceuta, re-entered his own
town of Sagres for the last time. His work was nearly done, and indeed,
of that work there only remains one thing to notice. The