The list of pretenders to regal honours was not even yet complete. In 1598, a Portuguese noble was accosted in the streets of Padua by a tattered pilgrim, who addressed him by name, and asked if he knew him. The nobleman answered that he did not. "Alas! have twenty years so changed me," cried the stranger, "that you cannot recognise in me your missing king, Sebastian?" He then proceeded to pour his past history into the ears of the astonished hidalgo, narrating the chief events of the African battle, detailing the circumstances of his own escape, and mentioning the friends and events of his earlier life so fluently and correctly that his listener had no hesitation in accepting him as the true Sebastian. The news of the appearance of this pretender in Padua soon reached Portugal, and spread with unexampled rapidity throughout the country. Philip II. was gravely disturbed by the report, knowing that his own rule was unpopular, and that the people would be disposed to rally round any claimant who promised on his accession to the throne to relieve them from the heavy burdens under which they groaned. He therefore lost no time in forestalling any attempt to oust him from the Portuguese sovereignty; and despatched a courier to Venice, demanding the interference of the authorities. The governor of Venice, anxious to please the powerful ruler of the Spanish peninsula, issued an order for the immediate expulsion of "the man calling himself Don Sebastian;" but the "man" had no intention of being disposed of in this summary manner. Immediately on receipt of the order he proceeded to Venice, presented himself at court, and declared himself ready to prove his identity. The Spanish minister, acting upon his instructions, denounced him as an impostor, and as a criminal who had been guilty of heinous offences, and demanded his arrest. He was thrown into prison; but when the charges of the Spanish minister were investigated, they failed signally, and no crime could be proven against him. At the solicitation of Philip, however, he was kept under arrest, and was frequently submitted to examination by the authorities, with a view of entrapping him into some damaging admission. At first he answered readily, and astonished his questioners by his intimate knowledge of the inner life of the Portuguese court, not only mentioning the names of Sebastian's ministers and the ambassadors who had been accredited to Lisbon, but describing their appearance and peculiarities, and recounting the chief measures of his government, and the contents of the letters which had been written by the king. At length, after cheerfully submitting to be examined on twenty-eight separate occasions, he grew tired of being pestered by his questioners, and refused to answer further interrogatories, exclaiming, "My Lords, I am Sebastian, king of Portugal! If you doubt it, permit me to be seen by my subjects, many of whom will remember me. If you can prove that I am an impostor,