Page:Catherine of Bragança, infanta of Portugal, & queen-consort of England.djvu/111

Rh to her cabin, and at last she most reluctantly obeyed, with how heavy a sadness can be guessed.

The King steered for the Paço, where they had embarked, and his train of boats with the suite followed after. The Royal Charles weighed anchor, and she and her fleet prepared to set out for sea.

But the winds and waves gave Catherine another little pause, in which she might longer see her beloved native land. The wind veered sharply round into an unfavouring quarter, and the English ships could not leave Lisbon Bay. Both the fleet and the city took advantage of the unforeseen delay to illuminate that night, more effusively than they had done before. A kind of water carnival was hastily arranged, in which hundreds of little boats with bright lights filled the bay about the fleet, and threw up fire-balls. Rockets and squibs roared up to the dark heavens from the shore, and the people of Lisbon, as well as the English on their ships, did all that was possible to divert Catherine's mind, and amuse her in this awkward check to her departure.

All the next day the wind was anxiously watched, both from the fleet and the city, but still it blew strongly against the ships. The Queen-Regent sent again and again to inquire for her daughter, and to offer comforting sympathy on the delay. Everybody can understand and appreciate an unexpected check to a desired journey, and it is easy to enter into the feelings of poor Catherine, detained in this provoking way within sight of the home she had left with such grief, and stopped short in her progress to her marriage.

That evening the fleet was still storm-bound. Catherine's two brothers, exceedingly anxious that she should not be too much depressed by the fretting delay, arranged with each other to give her a pretty little pleasure. They chose certain of the specially musical nobles of the Court to accompany them, and they all came out to surround the Royal Charles in the barges, carrying musical instruments. They serenaded Catherine with