had led
the disastrous overseas expedition against the Infidel, which had been
shattered on the field of Alcacer-el-Kebir some fifteen years ago.

He loved to paint for her in words the dazzling knightly pageants he had
seen along the quays at Lisbon, when that expedition was embarking with
crusader ardour, the files of Portuguese knights and men-at-arms, the
array of German and Italian mercenaries, the young king in his bright
armour, bare of head--an incarnation of St. Michael--moving forward
exultantly amid flowers and acclamations to take ship for Africa. And
she would listen with parted lips and glistening eyes, her slim body
bending forward in her eagerness to miss no word of this great epic.
Anon when he came to tell of that disastrous day of Alcacer-el-Kebir,
her dark, eager eyes would fill with tears. His tale of it was hardly
truthful. He did not say that military incompetence and a presumptuous
vanity which would listen to no counsels had been the cause of a ruin
that had engulfed the chivalry of Portugal, and finally the very kingdom
itself. He represented the defeat as due to the overwhelming numbers
of the Infidel, and dwelt at length upon the closing scene, told her
in fullest detail how Sebastian had scornfully rejected the counsels of
those who urged him to fly when all was lost, how the young king, who
had fought with a lion-hearted courage, unwilling to survive the day's
defeat, had turned and ridden back alone into the Saracen host to fight
his last fight and find a knightly death. Thereafter he was seen no
more.

It was a tale she never tired of hearing, and it moved her more and more
deeply each time she listened to it. She would ply him with questions
touching this Sebastian, who had been her cousin, concerning his ways
of life, his boyhood, and his enactments when he came to the crown
of Portugal. And all that Frey Miguel de Souza told her served but
to engrave more deeply upon her virgin mind the adorable image of the
knightly king. Ever present in the daily thoughts of this ardent girl,
his empanoplied figure haunted now her sleep, so real and vivid that
her waking senses would dwell fondly upon the dream-figure as upon the
memory of someone seen in actual life; likewise she treasured up the
memory of the dream--words he had uttered, words it would seem begotten
of the longings of her starved and empty heart, words of a kind not
calculated to bring peace to the soul of a nun professed. She wa