In the mean time, he turns his attention to what seems to concern himself more nearly. He believes that Henry, whom he perceives to be as resolute as adventurous, will one day carry out his schemes of maritime enterprise, and that he will thus exercise an influence on the destinies of Africa. Will this influence be exerted for good or evil? He sets himself to study the character of the young prince more carefully, makes diligent inquiry concerning his deportment in childhood, and tries to collect information in regard to his lineage,--for this is a point much considered among the Mandingos. He is so fortunate as to make the acquaintance of an ancient nobleman, versed in the history and traditions of the country, as well as in those of the royal court, and fond of telling what he knows, when he has a safe opportunity,--for he is a man of experience, and does not make either the past or the future a topic of conversation with his brother-courtiers. To him the African addresses his questions, and not in vain. The old man knew the present king when he was only Grand Master of the Order of Avis, and the Infant Henry has grown up under his very eyes. All that the traveller learns in regard to Henry himself is satisfactory; and he finds that King John, his father, is regarded as a just and wise sovereign. But, on nearer inquiry, he discovers that this great king is, in fact, a usurper; for, in Portugal, the successor to the crown must be the son of his father's principal wife, and King John had not this advantage. He learns, with yet more regret, that this sovereign is of a family in which filial impiety is hereditary. The first of the dynasty, King Alphonso, made war against his own mother, and imprisoned her in a fortress, where she died, having first, as the Mandingo heard with horror, bestowed her malediction on her son and his line. She foretold that he should be great, but not happy; that his posterity should live in domestic strife and unnatural hatred; that success should only bring them sorrow, and even their just enterprises should turn to evil.
The African asks anxiously whether the religion of the Christians had already been revealed in the time of Alphonso. His venerable friend replies that it had, and that Alphonso, by his great piety displayed in the building of monasteries and in the slaughter of Moors,--for he did not spare even the tender infants,--averted from himself some of the effects of the curse. But though he obtained the crown of Portugal and was permitted to triumph over the infidels, yet it was remarked that his life was disturbed and unhappy, and that he met with strange disasters in the midst of his successes. The curse seemed to deepen with time. His grandson, the second Alphonso, set aside his father's will, and seized on the inheritance of his sisters; a third Alphonso, son to this second one, deprived his elder brother of his throne; the fourth Alphonso rebelled against his father, and was rebelled against, in his turn, by his son Peter, whose wife he had murdered, and who, in revenge, ravaged the country that was to be his own inheritance. When he came to the throne, Peter caused the men who had been the instruments of his father's crime to be put to death by horrible and lingering tortures, which he himself superintended. This Peter, surnamed the Severe, was father to the reigning king, entitled John the Great.