Directing his course downwards towards the coast, the King found himself at night in a mean town six leagues from Setuval; some shops were open, and at one of them he purchased a homely dress, better calculated for disguise than the mutilated habit he had brought with him from Africa: but alas! the unfortunate Sebastian scarcely needed any other disguise than the alterations wrought on him by hardships and sorrows. The roundness of health and youth was no more to be seen in his figure, giving beauty to strength, and proportion to grace: his cheeks were wan and hollow, his eyes dim, his brow furrowed with the frequent contraction of thought; that enchanting smile which used to distinguish him from all mankind, never appeared on his lips; who then was to recognize Sebastian in this gloomy-looking traveller? He slept in the town, and the next morning resumed the road to Setuval. The second night he took up his abode in a cavern on the coast whence there was a noble view of the town and bay. A radiant moon, brightened by slight frost, (for it was now November,) illuminated this quiet retreat; its roof, hung with crystal stalactites, like natural fringes of diamonds, startled Sebastian on entering, he paused and looked back: the same resplendent moon was more temperately reflected from a vast stretch of sea; myriads of stars twinkled around her; the vessels in the bay, and the buildings in the town were silvered by her light, and only a faint dashing of waves broke the tranquillity of the scene. Is there a heart to which moonlight is not hallowed by some association, or in which it does not awaken devotional feelings? Sebastian felt its softening, purifying influence, and making the sign of the cross over his breast and forehead, gently breathed a prayer to the Divine Being from whom that lovely orb derived her beauty and her light. He entered the cavern with a calmed spirit: when he beheld its fantastic interior flashing splendor on him from a thousand tremulous crystals, he owned with admiration that no mortal palace could surpass the magnificence of this to which chance had conducted him. The tumult of indignant emotions that had agitated him incessantly since his reception from Donna Gonsalva, now gave way for awhile to tenderness only: he was about to leave his country and his people, he was going to try the attachment of subjects, who, situated in another quarter of the globe, knew him solely by his choice of their former governors. Could he expect to find from them that grateful fidelity which his own court and familiar friends had failed to shew! and was it from the harshly-treated De Castro that he was to seek for love and duty? “Yes, from De Castro!” answered the noble spirit of Sebastian, “I cannot better recompence his virtue and efface my own injustice than by voluntarily affording him an opportunity of serving me.”