sally. But the device was too transparent, and a few men shot and a sleepless night were the only result. When the English had arrived at Alvelade, Count de Fuentes, with the main body of Spaniards, was at Alcantara, a mile or so nearer Lisbon. Thither Albert hastily summoned a council of war, and urged his officers at last to make a stand at once before the English could co-operate with their friends within the walls of Lisbon. Fuentes and the other Spanish commanders were of the same opinion, but the Portuguese Colonel, Fernando de Castro, made a speech pointing out that the English were short of stores, cut off from their base, and weakened by sickness and short commons. "Let us," he said, "fall back into the {57} city and conquer them by hunger and delay. Behind our walls they will be powerless to injure us, whilst we can draw abundant supplies from across the river, and they cannot blockade us even by land with less than 40,000 men." This exactly suited the other Portuguese, who were never comfortable unless they had a good thick wall between themselves and their enemies. The opinion of the Spaniards was overborne, and the defending force entered the gates of Lisbon on Corpus Christi day, midst the ringing of bells and the more or less sincere rejoicing of the populace. Lisbon feasted and welcomed its defenders, whilst poor Dom Antonio, we are told, at Alvelade just outside, had not a fowl or even a loaf of rye bread to eat. "You may guess how he is hated by the Portuguese," says my Portuguese diarist, "that he being so near his native Lisbon not even a costermonger or a down dared to send him a meal, whilst we in the city had plenty." Most of the houses adjoining the walls had been blown up, but the monastery of the Trinidade, down the hill towards the river, still remained. The prior was understood to be in favour of Dom Antonio, as were nearly all churchmen, and Ruy Diaz de Lobo, one of the few nobles with Dom Antonio, undertook to negotiate with him to admit the English to the city through the monastery garden. By the aid of two sympathetic monks he obtained access to the prior. But the latter had been gained over by the Spaniards, and a few hours afterwards the pale heads of Ruy Diaz de Lobo and the two monks were grinning with half-closed, lustreless eyes from the top of three poles on the great quay, whilst Sir {58} Roger Williams and his men, when they approached the monastery in expectation of a friendly reception, were received with a shower of harquebuss balls, and fell back. The rest of the day, now that the main body of English had come up, was spent in quartering the men in the suburbs of the city, entrenched camps being formed, protected by breastworks of wine-pipes filled with earth. Tired with their six days' march and their labour in the trenches, Norris' little army were glad to pass their first night before Lisbon in such peace as the besieged would allow them.