He now candidly confessed to his courteous entertainer, that gratitude and love united, formed the strongest motives to the action he meditated: he sought to be entrusted with some command, chiefly that it might bring him into contact with the Basha, and afford him an opportunity of winning rather than stealing Kara Aziek. Shirley’s character was too grave and philosophic for perfect sympathy with the feelings of an impassioned lover: he smiled at the importance which a sentiment he had never felt, could bestow upon women; but he forbore uttering his thoughts: he tasked himself to consider how it would be best to procure from the Sophi that trust the stranger sought. A review of the Persian levies was to take place on the morrow; Sir Anthony settled that they should repair thither together, when the knight would be enabled to demonstrate his military knowledge in a scene calculated to call it forth, and the Sophi might investigate his observations through the medium of an interpreter:--meanwhile Sebastian was requested to consider the Englishman’s house as that of an ancient friend; to reside in it, and to command there. Shirley now made many anxious inquiries about the precise state of his countrywoman, which Sebastian could only answer by assuring him that she was in the hands of the tenderest and most generous of women:--he then besought some particulars of the battle of Alcazar. Eager to seize this opportunity of dissipating the error into which he perceived all the European courts had fallen (an error which attributed the failure of Portugal to unskilfulness, and not treachery,) Sebastian willingly called back the sufferings of that painful period: he gave a distinct account of the Portuguese operations from the moment in which the army touched African ground, till that period in which Muley Hamet caused its overthrow. His animated descriptions--alternately prosperous and pathetic, rivetted the attention of Shirley; he followed the speaker’s glowing language with answering enthusiasm, yet did he retain sufficient coolness to note as he went along, every expression which might develope the great commander or disclose the mere novice. With surprize and gratification he witnessed the emotion with which Sebastian made the eulogium of his countryman: the gallant deeds of Stukeley lived again in the hurried eloquence of a brother in arms: his fall was but mentioned, not dwelt on, for at that part, the lips of the orator quivered, and his voice was choaked in its passage. Pleased with this sensibility, and satisfied with the observations which had grown out of their interesting discourse, Shirley assumed a more confidential tone, and hazarded a conjecture about the fate of the King and his surviving adherents: Sebastian rose in disorder.