stian knight, was
to show a higher courage than he had ever needed on the battle-field.
He, the noblest born and the least robust of the captives, did his hard
tasks with a diligence and patience which won the admiration even of his
tormentors.

When the captives were shut at night into the dark and noisome dungeon
where they slept, he would gather his companions about him and hearten
them with his brave words, calling them brothers and comrades, and only
grieving that he had led them to share his own ill-fortune. Complaints
and murmurs were shamed into silence by his brave patience, and if ever
the self-control of the weary, half-starved captives broke down and they
quarrelled among themselves, the angry words were checked by the
remembrance that nothing would so grieve the prince. And since

'The courage that bears, and the courage that dares,
Are really one and the same,'

not one of Queen Philippa's sons proved more worthy of his knighthood
than the youngest of the five.

The bitterest trial came when Fernando's health, always delicate, gave
way altogether under his privations, and he could no longer do the tasks
required of him. Even the comfort of his companions' presence was now
denied him, and in his wretched cell he lay patiently through the
stifling days, counting the hours until the tramp of feet and clank of
chains told of the return of his friends from their long day's toil.

Then, if their warder was lenient, there would be a pause by the
cell-door, and a moment's breathless waiting lest there should be no
answer to their anxious question of how he did, lest the voice, that
would still speak words of comfort and cheer through the darkness,
should be silent for ever.

But, as the prince grew weaker, his courage and patience moved even his
captors to mercy, and his friends were about him when, after seven years
of slavery, the brave spirit passed at length into the true freedom.

Thirty years later the body of Fernando was ransomed, in exchange for a
Moorish prisoner, and laid in his native land; but his true monument is
the city which his long captivity saved for Christendom. The days of
such slavery as his are gone by. The galleys of the Moorish pirates no
longer sweep the inland sea, and we shall have stories to tell by-and-by
of the men who chased them from their strongholds. But Ceuta was won
four hundred years earlier, by the swords which our English princess
bequeathed to her sons, and was