Page:The Lusiad (Camões, tr. Mickle, 1791), Volume 1.djvu/402

 Given to the world to spread Religion's sway, And pour o'er many a land the mental day, Thy future honours on thy shield behold, The cross, and victor's wreath, embost in gold: attendants. On this act of violence, his emotion of mind was so great that he fell from his horse, and one of his guards having caught him in his arms, conveyed him to his litter, where, putting his finger on his lips to enjoin them silence, he immediately expired. Hamet Taba stood by the curtains of the carriage, opened them from time to time, and gave out orders as if he had received them from the emperor. Victory declared for the Moors, and the defeat of the Portuguese was so total, that not above fifty of their whole army escaped. Hieron de Mendoça, and Sebastian de Mesa relate, that Don Sebastian, after having two horses killed under him, was surrounded and taken; but the party who had secured him quarrelling among themselves whose prisoner he was, a Moorish officer rode up and struck the king a blow over the right eye, which brought him to the ground; when, despairing of ransom, the others killed him. Faria y Sousa, an exact and judicious historian, reports, that Lewis de Brito meeting the king with the royal standard wrapped round him, Sebastian cried out, "Hold it fast, let us die upon it." Brito affirmed, that after he himself was taken prisoner, he saw the king at a distance unpursued. Don Lewis de Lima afterwards met him making towards the river; and this, says the historian, was the last time he was ever seen alive. About twenty years after this fatal defeat, there appeared a stranger at Venice, who called himself Sebastian, king of Portugal. His person so perfectly resembled Sebastian, that the Portuguese of that city acknowledged him for their sovereign. Philip II. of Spain was now master of the crown and kingdom of Portugal. His ambassador at Venice charged this stranger with many atrocious crimes, and had interest to get him apprehended and thrown into prison as an impostor. He underwent twenty-eight examinations before a committee of the nobles, in which he clearly acquitted himself of all the crimes that had been laid to his charge; and he gave a distinct account of the manner in which he had passed his time from the fatal defeat at Alcazar. It was objected, that the successor of Muley Molucco sent a corpse to Portugal which had been owned as that of the king by the Portuguese nobility who survived the battle. To this he replied, that his valet de chambre had produced that body to facilitate his escape, and that the nobility acted upon the same motive: and Mesa and At