Sebastian stopt to recover voice, for a tide of tenderness subdued him. After a moment he resumed. “Think of them in all your actions: be just to them, as to Portugal: let your zeal for each be equally balanced, and then whatever be the requisitions you may demand of my domestic security, I will implicitly comply with them. I am ready to _risk much_ for my people if they be worthy the risk; but I will not _sacrifice all_ to a capricious or ungrateful nobility.” Kara Aziek snatched her husband’s hand to her lips, with an exclamation of joy: Sebastian turned on her a look expressive of his soul. De Castro gave the promise desired of him, settled the cypher with which they were to correspond on political subjects, and taking a gracious leave of Gaspar, was about to depart, when Sebastian called him back. “Stay awhile, Don Emanuel,” he said, “I had forgotten to give you a passport to Sir Anthony Shirley. This ring, for which I exchanged one bestowed on me by my Aziek, will recall me to him as the Knight of the Cross; and through his testimony perhaps, your romance may obtain an accredited hearing from the Queen of England. Tell the generous Englishman how truly, how warmly I remember him; tell him that the memory of his noble confidence at a time when everything conspired to make suspicion almost a virtue, will never leave my heart! “Shirley, who knew my past abhorrence of those pure doctrines I would now die to defend, may doubt my present sincerity; but you, De Castro, must clear me from the imputation of deserting the worship of my fathers, through political motives. “Fixed for an indefinite period in this land where every Portuguese considers me as a strange and unhallowed, though perhaps, benevolent person, policy would have bidden me shew an excessive zeal for the faith of Rome: instead of that, I have risked my personal safety, and have been grievously persecuted and traversed by those severe ecclesiastics whom your authority was not sufficient to silence. “As it is, I expect that this alteration in my religious opinions, so far from assisting me to my throne, will prove a bar to my progress: my people may apprehend persecution from me.--Did they but read my heart!” The King having paused, De Castro ventured to speak. “My voice, Sire! shall not slumber, believe me; happily the Portuguese have been used to respect my voice; and since they hear the same temperate profession of our national religion, from the man who has lived above seven years in precious friendship with his sovereign, they will learn to understand that what he _believes_ himself, he wishes not to _force_ on others--adieu, my honoured liege! when we meet again”-- Don Emanuel could not proceed further: he threw himself once more at the feet of his King, who bending to raise and embrace him, repeated in a low voice, “when we meet again! De Castro, what a volume for thought, is there in those few words!”