But Portugal's honest, hardworking men and women were once more being brought to the brink of ruin by the politicians. The minister, Costa Cabral, having been created Count of Thomar, sought to repay Queen Maria da Gloria by measures of excessive royalism; and immediately all the turbulent spirits in the country were let loose. Some rough-and-ready poet dashed down a Portuguese Marseillaise, in which an imaginary "Mary of the Fountain" was hymned as a Joan of Arc raised up to save the fatherland. In Villa Branca and Navares, Antonio often heard the lads singing: Maria of the Fountain Has a sword in her hand, To slay the false Cabrals, The traitors to their land. Forward! brothers, forward! Forward! be our cry; On! for holy Freedom To conquer or to die. Suddenly the Septembrists took arms. Under the Viscount Sa da Bandeira there broke out the insurrection called by some the Mob-war and by others the war of Maria da Fonte. Cabral fell, and the Marshal Saldanha filled his place. To end the bloodshed and disorder foreign Powers intervened. On the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, exactly four years after Antonio began his memorable novena to Saint Isabel, the Convention of Granada was signed and a general amnesty was declared. The good news reached the farm on Saint Isabel's day, and Antonio hoped against hope that the dates were good omens. But within two years Cabral was once more in power; and, two years later, Saldanha and his soldiers once more turned him out. One morning Thomé and Branco, both grown old, brought a letter to announce the bankruptcy of the Lisbon shippers to whom Antonio had entrusted the collection of his accounts. The news came barely a week before a further payment of one hundred pounds fell due to the moneylenders. Antonio immediately hired a fast horse and hastened to Oporto. In answer to his request, the Jew and the German blandly offered to renew his bonds on terms so outrageous that the monk walked out of their office. But only three days remained, of which one was a holiday. He called at Senhor Castro's house to find the master dead. On the face of it, to raise a sum of two hundred pounds on property worth three thousand was an absurdly easy task, and Antonio counted on being able to wash his hands of the moneylenders within twenty-four hours. But owing to the political unrest an acute financial crisis prevailed in Oporto. Money was scarce and lenders were shy. Antonio's security was scores of leagues away, and there was no time to inspect it; nor could the title be easily investigated, as the deeds were in the money-lenders' hands. On his last day of grace the monk presented himself again at the so-called bank and stated that he would accept the hard terms offered. He was received with a volley of abuse.