Assured of his daughter’s health by seeing her hand writing, and now deeply solicitous to learn the event of the pending negociation, Sebastian transferred her letter to his wife, and opened the packet from Don Emanuel. It was written immediately after his second return from England: it was full of joyous expectation, Elizabeth had acceded to all the requests of the King of Portugal; she was ready to exchange a large subsidy for the person of the Princess Blanche; her expedition against Spain had sailed, and the moment she should obtain some advantage there, and have the presumptive heiress of Portugal in her possession, she meant to send and demand of Philip the restitution of her father’s kingdom. De Castro was come back to Sicily for the purpose of securing his brother-in-law’s support to the measures of England: by the council of his nobles, Philip might be influenced to resign a crown which he could not keep without their assistance. Affairs then were at their crisis; or rather that crisis was past, and at this moment, Blanche was either residing in the palace of her ancestors, and accepted as the representative of her father, or dwelling in England, while foreign armies were disputing for her father’s rights. The agitation excited by this idea, was yet fresh in the hearts of Kara Aziek and her Sebastian, when a vessel with dispatches to the governor, brought intelligence that Cadiz was taken by the English, that it was suspected they meant to send out a fleet against Spanish America, and that consequently the governor was called on to prepare for obstinate defence. These news reached Cachoeira by the messenger who brought a letter that had come in the same ship. The letter was from Gaspar, and but a month later in date than that of De Castro: it was short and afflicting: Don Emanuel was dead. A long and violent fever with which he had been seized soon after his return to Messina, had delayed the departure of Blanche, and had at last terminated the life of her most valuable friend. De Castro had died in the full belief that Providence favoured the cause of justice and his King; he had died at the brightest moment of their enterprize; he was therefore to be envied perhaps, if Providence should will a different fate, and ordain disappointment to the allies. But what a shock was this event! what a loss! the grief of Sebastian was as profound as remembrance of De Castro’s past services, and dependence on his exertions might be expected to render it: he lamented not only the best of men, but the most zealous of friends. The sinew of his strength was gone; nay rather, was not De Castro the soul of every project? A solemn check was here given to those anticipations which had so lately spread joy through Cachoeira: one blow, taught him who had been stricken by repeated misfortune, to expect another, and while he mourned the companion he loved, he trembled to imagine that new calamities might be in store for himself and others.