The Duke of Braganza dispatched his late mother’s confessor, the Father Sampayo, with a written deposition of the person and natural marks of Don Sebastian, taken from the testimony of his foster-brother and his servants, requiring the republic to compare that description with her prisoner. These various exertions were now making in favour of him, who remote from all intelligence, remained a prey to every species of misery. The fate of these friends themselves, and of his innocent daughter, began to alarm his fears, and the possibility of being torn from his wife and child, filled him with dismay. He was sitting one wintry night, (listening to the hollow wind that swept in gusts over the Adriatic) now looking towards the chamber where Aziek had sunk into a short slumber, now fixing his eyes in sad abstraction on the ground, when the door opened, and Signor Valdorno the governor appeared, followed by a person in the dress of a monk. “This holy man’s importunities have made me hazard my office to give you comfort, sir,” said Valdorno, speaking low--“your interview shall be private--I will return in an hour.” The governor closed the door, which he fastened on the outside again, and then departed. Sebastian had risen up: he looked earnestly towards the monk, who was standing with his eyes fixed as wistfully upon him. Sebastian looked to find the features of Gaspar beneath this disguise; but he saw only an aged and care-worn visage, over which a few tears began slowly to trickle. “So changed! so very much changed!” said the old man in a feeble voice after a long silence, “yet noble and princely still! Can twenty years, then, make such havoc in manly beauty! speak to me, Sir! let me be sure it is my lord and master Don Sebastian; on whose head I laid these withered hands in benediction at the house of the Duchess Braganza, on the day of his embarkation for Africa. Speak to me, Sir--let me hear your voice!” “Sampayo! good father Sampayo!” exclaimed Sebastian, falling on his neck, and melting into weakness, “do you live to seek me? has your old age been spared only to find your master thus?” Sampayo wrung his hands in transport, “It is, it is my King!” he exclaimed, while essaying to bend his trembling knee, Sebastian stayed him on his arm. “Not so, good father! but our time is short; say whence you come, and from whom! know you aught of my friend Juan De Castro--and of him the most faithful, most dear, whom I sent to my kinsman in Portugal?”