hope of his recovery; and every time
he issued from the tent of Don John, and noted the groups of veterans
praying on their knees for the restoration of the son of their
emperor, and heard the younger soldiers calling aloud in loyal
affection upon the name of the hero of Lepanto, tears came into his
eyes as he passed on to the discharge of his duties. For he knew that
their intercessions were in vain--that the hours of the sufferer were
numbered. In a moment of respite from his sufferings, the sacraments
of the church were administered to the dying prince; having received
which with becoming humility, he summoned around him the captains of
the camp, and exhorted them to zeal in the service of Spain, and
fidelity to his noble successor in command.

It was the 1st of October, the anniversary of the action of Lepanto,
and on a glorious autumnal day of golden sunshine, that, towards
evening, he ordered the curtains of his tent to be drawn aside, that
he might contemplate for the last time the creation of God!--

Raising his head proudly from a soldier's pillow, he uttered in
hoarse but distinct accents his last request, that his body might be
borne to Spain, and buried at the feet of his father. For his eyes
were fixed upon the glories of the orb of day, and his mind upon the
glories of the memory of one of the greatest of kings.

But that pious wish reflected the last flash of human reason in his
troubled mind. His eyes became suddenly inflamed with fever, his
words incoherent, his looks haggard. Having caused them to sound the
trumpets at the entrance of his tent, as for an onset, he ranged his
battalions for an imaginary field of battle, and disposed his
manoeuvres, and gave the word to charge against the enemy.[18] Then,
sinking back upon his pillow, he breathed in subdued accents, "Let me
at least avenge her innocent blood. Why, why could I not save thee,
my Ulrica!"--

[Footnote 18: The foregoing details are strictly historical.]

It was thus he died. When Nignio de Zuniga (cursing in his heart with
a fourfold curse the heretics whom he chose to consider the murderers
of his master) stooped down to lay his callous hand on the heart of
the hero, the pulses of life were still!--

There was but one cry throughout the camp--there was but one thought
among his captains:--"Let the bravest knight of Christendom be laid
nobly in the grave!" Attired in the suit of mail in which he had
fought at Lepanto, the body was pla