secretly present at the Requiem."

He met her dilating glance, noted the quivering of her parted lips.

"But that," he added, "was fifteen years ago, and since then I have had
no sign. At first I thought it possible... there was a story afloat that
might have been true... But fifteen years!" He sighed, and shook his
head.

"What... what was the story?" She was trembling from head to foot.

"On the night after the battle three horsemen rode up to the gates of
the fortified coast-town of Arzilla. When the timid guard refused to
open to them, they announced that one of them was King Sebastian, and
so won admittance. One of the three was wrapped in a cloak, his
face concealed, and his two companions were observed to show him the
deference due to royalty."

"Why, then..." she was beginning.

"Ah, but afterwards," he interrupted her, "afterwards, when all
Portugal was thrown into commotion by that tale, it was denied that King
Sebastian had been among these horsemen. It was affirmed to have been no
more than a ruse of those men's to gain the shelter of the city."

She questioned and cross-questioned him upon that, seeking to draw from
him the admission that it was possible denial and explanation obeyed the
wishes of the hidden prince.

"Yes, it is possible," he admitted at length, "and it is believed by
many to be the fact. Don Sebastian was as sensitive as high-spirited.
The shame of his defeat may have hung so heavily upon him that he
preferred to remain in hiding, and to sacrifice a throne of which he
now felt himself unworthy. Half Portugal believes it so, and waits and
hopes."

When Frey Miguel parted from her that day, he took with him the clear
conviction that not in all Portugal was there a soul who hoped
more fervently than she that Don Sebastian lived, or yearned more
passionately to acclaim him should he show himself. And that was much to
think, for the yearning of Portugal was as the yearning of the slave for
freedom.

Sebastian's mother was King Philip's sister, whereby King Philip had
claimed the succession, and taken possession of the throne of Portugal.
Portugal writhed under the oppressive heel of that foreign rule, and
Frey Miguel de Sousa himself, a deeply, passionately patriotic man,
had been foremost among those who had sought to liberate her. When Don
Antonio, the sometime Prior of Crato, Sebastian's natural cousin, and
a bold, ambitious, enterprising man, had raised the standard of revolt,