Then the strenuous Pontiff remembered that King Don Alonso had promised to provide Him with such a fleet; and it gently and firmly was intimated to the Cardinal-Admiral that he might go to Naples and collect the same: if he failed to go, he had the alternative of facing a judicial inquiry into his doings as generalissimo under the Lord Eugenius P.P. IV. Thereon the Cardinal-Admiral scoured away hot-foot for Naples; where he found that King Don Alonso the Magnanimous had belied his promises, having sent the ships to settle a little private dispute in which his Majesty was engaged with the Republic of Genoa. This was bad news for the Pope: but it did not alter His determination by the breadth of a single hair. He was quite well-used to the vagaries and magnanimities of the King of Naples, whom He had known for more than forty years. He was equally well-resolved to use the services which the Cardinal-Admiral had volunteered. Men had thought Him to be a feeble old man who could be influenced with ease. They found out their mistake. We are accustomed to think of youth as fiery and headstrong: but what can bend the will of fiery headstrong age? His Holiness sent imperative commands to the Cardinal-Admiral that he must make the best of the ships in hand, and sail for the Ægean Sea, where at least he could help the Crusade by creating a diversion among the islands that the Infidels owned there. * * * * * [Illustration: _Alfonso of Aragon_] Fresh troubles were at hand in Hungary. Round Belgrade, the putrefying carcases of the Muslim thousands envenomed the air. The rudiments of antiseptic sanitation were unknown. Those who have had to do with Boers, or Cubans, or Filipinos will know the unspeakable horror that this implies. Pest decimated the Christian army. Plague swept away the Magyar host, that Infidels in vain had tried to overcome. When they told him that his end was near, that Viaticum was approaching to be his strength on that dark road which man must tread alone, the noble Vaivod Jan Hunniades, said: “It is not fitting that our Lord should visit his servant”; and, rising from his death-bed, he dragged himself to the nearest altar, where, after confession and communion, in the priest’s hands he fell and yielded up his great and splendid soul, the eleventh of August 1456. On the twenty-third of October Fra Jan Capistrano also died. From Rome came the voice of the Pope strenuously appealing to the Powers. His ablegates preached in every country. The common people heard Him gladly, and responded to His call: but the nobles lent deaf ears. Upper Germany and Nürnberg equipped battalions of crusaders, which were increased by contingents from England and France.