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+Project Gutenberg EBook, Leila by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Volume 1
+#196 in our series by Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
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+
+Title: Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book I.
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+Release Date: January 2006 [EBook #9756]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 9, 2003]
+
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
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+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LEILA, BY LYTTON, V1 ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+orrected and updated text and HTML PG Editions of the complete
+5 volume set may be found at:
+
+https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9761/9761.txt
+
+https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9761/9761-h/9761-h.htm
+
+
+
+
+ LEILA
+
+ OR,
+
+ THE SIEGE OF GRANADA
+
+ BY
+
+ EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
+
+
+ Book I.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE ENCHANTER AND THE WARRIOR.
+
+It was the summer of the year 1491, and the armies of Ferdinand and
+Isabel invested the city of Granada.
+
+The night was not far advanced; and the moon, which broke through the
+transparent air of Andalusia, shone calmly over the immense and murmuring
+encampment of the Spanish foe, and touched with a hazy light the snow-
+capped summits of the Sierra Nevada, contrasting the verdure and
+luxuriance which no devastation of man could utterly sweep from the
+beautiful vale below.
+
+In the streets of the Moorish city many a group still lingered. Some, as
+if unconscious of the beleaguering war without, were listening in quiet
+indolence to the strings of the Moorish lute, or the lively tale of an
+Arabian improrvisatore; others were conversing with such eager and
+animated gestures, as no ordinary excitement could wring from the stately
+calm habitual to every oriental people. But the more public places in
+which gathered these different groups, only the more impressively
+heightened the desolate and solemn repose that brooded over the rest of
+the city.
+
+At this time, a man, with downcast eyes, and arms folded within the
+sweeping gown which descended to his feet, was seen passing through the
+streets, alone, and apparently unobservent of all around him. Yet this
+indifference was by no means shared by the struggling crowds through
+which, from time to time, he musingly swept.
+
+"God is great!" said one man; "it is the Enchanter Almamen."
+
+"He hath locked up the manhood of Boabdil el Chico with the key of his
+spells," quoth another, stroking his beard; "I would curse him, if I
+dared."
+
+"But they say that he hath promised that when man fails, the genii will
+fight for Granada," observed a third, doubtingly.
+
+"Allah Akbar! what is, is! what shall be, shall be!" said a fourth, with
+all the solemn sagacity of a prophet. Whatever their feelings, whether
+of awe or execration, terror or hope, each group gave way as Almamen
+passed, and hushed the murmurs not intended for his ear. Passing through
+the Zacatin (the street which traversed the Great Bazaar), the reputed
+enchanter ascended a narrow and winding street, and arrived at last
+before the walls that encircled the palace and fortress of the Alhambra.
+
+The sentry at the gate saluted and admitted him in silence; and in a few
+moments his form was lost in the solitude of groves, amidst which, at
+frequent openings, the spray of Arabian fountains glittered in the
+moonlight; while, above, rose the castled heights of the Alhambra; and on
+the right those Vermilion Towers, whose origin veils itself in the
+furthest ages of Phoenician enterprise.
+
+Almamen paused, and surveyed the scene. "Was Aden more lovely?" he
+muttered; "and shall so fair a spot be trodden by the victor Nazerene?
+What matters? creed chases creed--race, race--until time comes back to
+its starting-place, and beholds the reign restored to the eldest faith
+and the eldest tribe. The horn of our strength shall be exalted."
+
+At these thoughts the seer relapsed into silence, and gazed long and
+intently upon the stars, as, more numerous and brilliant with every step
+of the advancing night, their rays broke on the playful waters, and
+tinged with silver the various and breathless foliage. So earnest was
+his gaze, and so absorbed his thoughts, that he did not perceive the
+approach of a Moor, whose glittering weapons and snow-white turban, rich
+with emeralds, cast a gleam through the wood.
+
+The new comer was above the common size of his race, generally small and
+spare--but without attaining the lofty stature and large proportions of
+the more redoubted of the warriors of Spain. But in his presence and
+mien there was something, which, in the haughtiest conclave of Christian
+chivalry, would have seemed to tower and command. He walked with a step
+at once light and stately, as if it spurned the earth; and in the
+carriage of the small erect head and stag-like throat, there was that
+undefinable and imposing dignity, which accords so well with our
+conception of a heroic lineage, and a noble though imperious spirit. The
+stranger approached Almamen, and paused abruptly when within a few steps
+of the enchanter. He gazed upon him in silence for some moments; and
+when at length he spoke it was with a cold and sarcastic tone.
+
+"Pretender to the dark secrets," said he, "is it in the stars that thou
+art reading those destinies of men and nations, which the Prophet wrought
+by the chieftain's brain and the soldier's arm?"
+
+"Prince," replied Almamen, turning slowly, and recognising the intruder
+on his meditations, "I was but considering how many revolutions, which
+have shaken earth to its centre, those orbs have witnessed,
+unsympathising and unchanged."
+
+"Unsympathising!" repeated the Moor--"yet thou believest in their effect
+upon the earth?"
+
+"You wrong me," answered Almamen, with a slight smile, "you confound your
+servant with that vain race, the astrologers."
+
+"I deemed astrology a part of the science of the two angels, Harut and
+Marut."
+
+ [The science of magic. It was taught by the Angels named in the
+ text; for which offence they are still supposed to be confined to
+ the ancient Babel. There they may yet be consulted, though they are
+ rarely seen.--Yallal'odir Yahya.
+ --SALE'S Koran.]
+
+"Possibly; but I know not that science, though I have wandered at
+midnight by the ancient Babel."
+
+"Fame lies to us, then," answered the Moor, with some surprise.
+
+"Fame never made pretence to truth," said Almamen, calmly, and proceeding
+on his way. "Allah be with you, prince! I seek the king."
+
+"Stay! I have just quitted his presence, and left him, I trust, with
+thoughts worthy of the sovereign of Granada, which I would not have
+disturbed by a stranger, a man whose arms are not spear nor shield."
+
+"Noble Muza," returned Almamen, "fear not that my voice will weaken the
+inspirations which thine hath breathed into the breast of Boabdil. Alas!
+if my counsel were heeded, thou wouldst hear the warriors of Granada talk
+less of Muza, and more of the king. But Fate, or Allah, hath placed upon
+the throne of a tottering dynasty, one who, though brave, is weak--
+though, wise, a dreamer; and you suspect the adviser, when you find the
+influence of nature on the advised. Is this just?"
+
+Muza gazed long and sternly on the face of Almamen; then, putting his
+hand gently on the enchanter's shoulder, he said--
+
+"Stranger, if thou playest us false, think that this arm hath cloven the
+casque of many a foe, and will not spare the turban of a traitor!"
+
+"And think thou, proud prince!" returned Almamen, unquailing, "that I
+answer alone to Allah for my motives, and that against man my deeds I can
+defend!"
+
+With these words, the enchanter drew his long robe round him, and
+disappeared amidst the foliage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE KING WITHIN HIS PALACE.
+
+In one of those apartments, the luxury of which is known only to the
+inhabitants of a genial climate (half chamber and half grotto), reclined
+a young Moor, in a thoughtful and musing attitude.
+
+The ceiling of cedar-wood, glowing with gold and azure, was supported by
+slender shafts, of the whitest alabaster, between which were open
+arcades, light and graceful as the arched vineyards of Italy, and wrought
+in that delicate filagree-work common to the Arabian architecture:
+through these arcades was seen at intervals the lapsing fall of waters,
+lighted by alabaster lamps; and their tinkling music sounded with a fresh
+and regular murmur upon the ear. The whole of one side of this apartment
+was open to a broad and extensive balcony, which overhung the banks of
+the winding and moonlit Darro; and in the clearness of the soft night
+might be distinctly seen the undulating hills, the woods, and orange-
+groves, which still form the unrivalled landscapes of Granada.
+
+The pavement was spread with ottomans and couches of the richest azure,
+prodigally enriched with quaint designs in broideries of gold and silver;
+and over that on which the Moor reclined, facing the open balcony, were
+suspended on a pillar the round shield, the light javelin, and the
+curving cimiter, of Moorish warfare. So studded were these arms with
+jewels of rare cost, that they might alone have sufficed to indicate the
+rank of the evident owner, even if his own gorgeous vestments had not
+betrayed it. An open manuscript, on a silver table, lay unread before
+the Moor: as, leaning his face upon his hand, he looked with abstracted
+eyes along the mountain summits dimly distinguished from the cloudless
+and far horizon.
+
+No one could have gazed without a vague emotion of interest, mixed with
+melancholy, upon the countenance of the inmate of that luxurious chamber.
+
+Its beauty was singularly stamped with a grave and stately sadness, which
+was made still more impressive by its air of youth and the unwonted
+fairness of the complexion: unlike the attributes of the Moorish race,
+the hair and curling beard were of a deep golden colour; and on the broad
+forehead and in the large eyes, was that settled and contemplative
+mildness which rarely softens the swart lineaments of the fiery children
+of the sun. Such was the personal appearance of Boabdil el Chico, the
+last of the Moorish dynasty in Spain.
+
+"These scrolls of Arabian learning," said Boabdil to himself, "what do
+they teach? to despise wealth and power, to hold the heart to be the true
+empire. This, then, is wisdom. Yet, if I follow these maxims, am I
+wise? alas! the whole world would call me a driveller and a madman. Thus
+is it ever; the wisdom of the Intellect fills us with precepts which it
+is the wisdom of Action to despise. O Holy Prophet! what fools men would
+be, if their knavery did not eclipse their folly!"
+
+The young king listlessly threw himself back on his cushions as he
+uttered these words, too philosophical for a king whose crown sate so
+loosely on his brow.
+
+After a few moments of thought that appeared to dissatisfy and disquiet
+him, Boabdil again turned impatiently round "My soul wants the bath of
+music," said he; "these journeys into a pathless realm have wearied it,
+and the streams of sound supple and relax the travailed pilgrim."
+
+He clapped his hands, and from one of the arcades a boy, hitherto
+invisible, started into sight; at a slight and scarce perceptible sign
+from the king the boy again vanished, and in a few moments afterwards,
+glancing through the fairy pillars, and by the glittering waterfalls,
+came the small and twinkling feet of the maids of Araby. As, with their
+transparent tunics and white arms, they gleamed, without an echo, through
+that cool and voluptuous chamber, they might well have seemed the Peris
+of the eastern magic, summoned to beguile the sated leisure of a youthful
+Solomon. With them came a maiden of more exquisite beauty, though
+smaller stature, than the rest, bearing the light Moorish lute; and a
+faint and languid smile broke over the beautiful face of Boabdil, as his
+eyes rested upon her graceful form and the dark yet glowing lustre of her
+oriental countenance. She alone approached the king, timidly kissed his
+hand, and then, joining her comrades, commenced the following song, to
+the air and very words of which the feet of the dancing-girls kept time,
+while with the chorus rang the silver bells of the musical instrument
+which each of the dancers carried.
+
+ AMINE'S SONG.
+
+ I.
+ Softly, oh, softly glide,
+ Gentle Music, thou silver tide,
+ Bearing, the lulled air along,
+ This leaf from the Rose of Song!
+ To its port in his soul let it float,
+ The frail, but the fragrant boat,
+ Bear it, soft Air, along!
+
+ II.
+ With the burthen of sound we are laden,
+ Like the bells on the trees of Aden,*
+ When they thrill with a tinkling tone
+ At the Wind from the Holy Throne,
+ Hark, as we move around,
+ We shake off the buds of sound;
+ Thy presence, Beloved, is Aden.
+
+ III.
+ Sweet chime that I hear and wake
+ I would, for my lov'd one's sake,
+ That I were a sound like thee,
+ To the depths of his heart to flee.
+ If my breath had his senses blest;
+ If my voice in his heart could rest;
+ What pleasure to die like thee!
+
+ *[The Mohammedans believe that musical bells hang on the trees of
+ Paradise, and are put in motion by a wind from the throne of God.]
+
+
+The music ceased; the dancers remained motionless in their graceful
+postures, as if arrested into statues of alabaster; and the young
+songstress cast herself on a cushion at the feet of the monarch, and
+looked up fondly, but silently, into his yet melancholy eyes,--when a
+man, whose entrance had not been noticed, was seen to stand within the
+chamber.
+
+He was about the middle stature,--lean, muscular, and strongly though
+sparely built. A plain black robe, something in the fashion of the
+Armenian gown, hung long and loosely over a tunic of bright scarlet,
+girdled by a broad belt, from the centre of which was suspended a small
+golden key, while at the left side appeared the jewelled hilt of a
+crooked dagger. His features were cast in a larger and grander mould
+than was common among the Moors of Spain; the forehead was broad,
+massive, and singularly high, and the dark eyes of unusual size and
+brilliancy; his beard, short, black, and glossy, curled upward, and
+concealed all the lower part of the face, save a firm, compressed, and
+resolute expression in the lips, which were large and full; the nose was
+high, aquiline, and well-shaped; and the whole character of the head
+(which was, for symmetry, on too large and gigantic a scale as
+proportioned to the form) was indicative of extraordinary energy and
+power. At the first glance, the stranger might have seemed scarce on the
+borders of middle age; but, on a more careful examination, the deep lines
+and wrinkles, marked on the forehead and round the eyes, betrayed a more
+advanced period of life. With arms folded on his breast, he stood by the
+side of the king, waiting in silence the moment when his presence should
+be perceived.
+
+He did not wait long; the eyes and gesture of the girl nestled at the
+feet of Boabdil drew the king's attention to the spot where the stranger
+stood: his eye brightened when it fell upon him.
+
+"Almamen," cried Boabdil, eagerly, "you are welcome." As he spoke, he
+motioned to the dancing-girls to withdraw. "May I not rest? O core of
+my heart, thy bird is in its home," murmured the songstress at the king's
+feet.
+
+"Sweet Amine," answered Boabdil, tenderly smoothing down her ringlets as
+he bent to kiss her brow, "you should witness only my hours of delight.
+Toil and business have nought with thee; I will join thee ere yet the
+nightingale hymns his last music to the moon." Amine sighed, rose, and
+vanished with her companions.
+
+"My friend," said the king, when alone with Almamen, "your counsels often
+soothe me into quiet, yet in such hours quiet is a crime. But what do?--
+how struggle?--how act? Alas! at the hour of his birth, rightly did they
+affix to the name of Boabdil, the epithet of _El Zogoybi_. [The Unlucky].
+Misfortune set upon my brow her dark and fated stamp ere yet my lips
+could shape a prayer against her power. My fierce father, whose frown
+was as the frown of Azrael, hated me in my cradle; in my youth my name
+was invoked by rebels against my will; imprisoned by my father, with the
+poison-bowl or the dagger hourly before my eyes, I was saved only by the
+artifice of my mother. When age and infirmity broke the iron sceptre of
+the king, my claims to the throne were set aside, and my uncle, El Zagal,
+usurped my birthright. Amidst open war and secret treason I wrestled for
+my crown; and now, the sole sovereign of Granada, when, as I fondly
+imagined, my uncle had lost all claim on the affections of my people by
+succumbing to the Christian king, and accepting a fief under his
+dominion, I find that the very crime of El Zagal is fixed upon me by my
+unhappy subjects--that they deem he would not have yielded but for my
+supineness. At the moment of my delivery from my rival, I am received
+with execration by my subjects, and, driven into this my fortress of the
+Alhambra, dare not venture to head my armies, or to face my people; yet
+am I called weak and irresolute, when strength and courage are forbid me.
+And as the water glides from yonder rock, that hath no power to retain
+it, I see the tide of empire welling from my hands."
+
+The young king spoke warmly and bitterly; and, in the irritation of his
+thoughts, strode, while he spoke, with rapid and irregular strides along
+the chamber. Almamen marked his emotion with an eye and lip of rigid
+composure.
+
+"Light of the faithful," said he, when Boabdil had concluded, "the powers
+above never doom man to perpetual sorrow, nor perpetual joy: the cloud
+and the sunshine are alike essential to the heaven of our destinies; and
+if thou hast suffered in thy youth, thou hast exhausted the calamities of
+fate, and thy manhood will be glorious, and thine age serene."
+
+"Thou speakest as if the armies of Ferdinand were not already around my
+walls," said Boabdil, impatiently.
+
+"The armies of Sennacherib were as mighty," answered Almamen.
+
+"Wise seer," returned the king, in a tone half sarcastic and half solemn,
+"we, the Mussulmans of Spain, are not the blind fanatics of the Eastern
+world. On us have fallen the lights of philosophy and science; and if
+the more clear-sighted among us yet outwardly reverence the forms and
+fables worshipped by the multitude, it is from the wisdom of policy, not
+the folly of belief. Talk not to me, then, of thine examples of the
+ancient and elder creeds: the agents of God for this world are now, at
+least, in men, not angels; and if I wait till Ferdinand share the destiny
+of Sennacherib, I wait only till the Standard of the Cross wave above the
+Vermilion Towers."
+
+"Yet," said Almamen, "while my lord the king rejects the fanaticism of
+belief, doth he reject the fanaticism of persecution? You disbelieve the
+stories of the Hebrews; yet you suffer the Hebrews themselves, that
+ancient and kindred Arabian race, to be ground to the dust, condemned and
+tortured by your judges, your informers, your soldiers, and your
+subjects."
+
+"The base misers! they deserve their fate," answered Boabdil, loftily.
+"Gold is their god, and the market-place their country; amidst the tears
+and groans of nations, they sympathise only with the rise and fall of
+trade; and, the thieves of the universe! while their hand is against
+every man's coffer, why wonder that they provoke the hand of every man
+against their throats? Worse than the tribe of Hanifa, who eat their god
+only in time of famine;--[The tribe of Hanifa worshipped a lump of
+dough]--the race of Moisa--[Moses]--would sell the Seven Heavens for the
+dent on the back of the date-stone."--[A proverb used in the Koran,
+signifying the smallest possible trifle].
+
+"Your laws leave them no ambition but that of avarice," replied Almamen;
+"and as the plant will crook and distort its trunk, to raise its head
+through every obstacle to the sun, so the mind of man twists and perverts
+itself, if legitimate openings are denied it, to find its natural element
+in the gale of power, or the sunshine of esteem. These Hebrews were not
+traffickers and misers in their own sacred land when they routed your
+ancestors, the Arab armies of old; and gnawed the flesh from their bones
+in famine, rather than yield a weaker city than Granada to a mightier
+force than the holiday lords of Spain. Let this pass. My lord rejects
+the belief in the agencies of the angels; doth he still retain belief in
+the wisdom of mortal men?"
+
+"Yes!" returned Boabdil, quickly; "for of the one I know nought; of the
+other, mine own senses can be the judge. Almamen, my fiery kinsman,
+Muza, hath this evening been with me. He hath urged me to reject the
+fears of my people, which chain my panting spirit within these walls; he
+hath urged me to gird on yonder shield and cimiter, and to appear in the
+Vivarrambla, at the head of the nobles of Granada. My heart leaps high
+at the thought! and if I cannot live, at least I will die--a king!"
+
+"It is nobly spoken," said Almamen, coldly.
+
+"You approve, then, my design?"
+
+"The friends of the king cannot approve the ambition of the king to die."
+
+"Ha!" said Boabdil, in an altered voice, "thou thinkest, then, that I am
+doomed to perish in this struggle?"
+
+"As the hour shall be chosen, wilt thou fall or triumph."
+
+"And that hour?"
+
+"Is not yet come."
+
+"Dost thou read the hour in the stars?"
+
+"Let Moorish seers cultivate that frantic credulity: thy servant sees but
+in the stars worlds mightier than this little earth, whose light would
+neither wane nor wink, if earth itself were swept from the infinities of
+space."
+
+"Mysterious man!" said Boabdil; "whence, then, is thy power?--whence thy
+knowledge of the future?"
+
+Almamen approached the king, as he now stood by the open balcony.
+
+"Behold!" said he, pointing to the waters of the Darro--"yonder stream is
+of an element in which man cannot live nor breathe: above, in the thin
+and impalpable air, our steps cannot find a footing, the armies of all
+earth cannot build an empire. And yet, by the exercise of a little art,
+the fishes and the birds, the inhabitants of the air and the water,
+minister to our most humble wants, the most common of our enjoyments; so
+it is with the true science of enchantment. Thinkest thou that, while
+the petty surface of the world is crowded with living things, there is no
+life in the vast centre within the earth, and the immense ether that
+surrounds it? As the fisherman snares his prey, as the fowler entraps
+the bird, so, by the art and genius of our human mind, we may thrall and
+command the subtler beings of realms and elements which our material
+bodies cannot enter--our gross senses cannot survey. This, then, is my
+lore. Of other worlds know I nought; but of the things of this world,
+whether men, or, as your legends term them, ghouls and genii, I have
+learned something. To the future, I myself am blind; but I can invoke
+and conjure up those whose eyes are more piercing, whose natures are more
+gifted."
+
+"Prove to me thy power," said Boabdil, awed less by the words than by the
+thrilling voice and the impressive aspect of the enchanter.
+
+"Is not the king's will my law?" answered Almamen; "be his will obeyed.
+To-morrow night I await thee."
+
+"Where?"
+
+Almamen paused a moment, and then whispered a sentence in the king's ear:
+Boabdil started, and turned pale.
+
+"A fearful spot!"
+
+"So is the Alhambra itself, great Boabdil; while Ferdinand is without the
+walls and Muza within the city."
+
+"Muza! Darest thou mistrust my bravest warrior?"
+
+"What wise king will trust the idol of the king's army? Did Boabdil fall
+to-morrow by a chance javelin, in the field, whom would the nobles and
+the warriors place upon his throne? Doth it require an enchanter's lore
+to whisper to thy heart the answer in the name of 'Muza'?"
+
+"Oh, wretched state! oh, miserable king!" exclaimed Boabdil, in a tone of
+great anguish. "I never had a father. I have now no people; a little
+while, and I shall have no country. Am I never to have a friend?"
+
+"A friend! what king ever had?" returned Almamen, drily.
+
+"Away, man--away!" cried Boabdil, as the impatient spirit of his rank and
+race shot dangerous fire from his eyes; "your cold and bloodless wisdom
+freezes up all the veins of my manhood! Glory, confidence, human
+sympathy, and feeling--your counsels annihilate them all. Leave me!
+I would be alone."
+
+"We meet to-morrow, at midnight, mighty Boabdil," said Almamen, with his
+usual unmoved and passionless tones. "May the king live for ever."
+
+The king turned; but his monitor had already disappeared. He went as he
+came--noiseless and sudden as a ghost.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE LOVERS.
+
+When Muza parted from Almamen, he bent his steps towards the hill that
+rises opposite the ascent crowned with the towers of the Alhambra; the
+sides and summit of which eminence were tenanted by the luxurious
+population of the city. He selected the more private and secluded paths;
+and, half way up the hill, arrived, at last, before a low wall of
+considerable extent, which girded the gardens of some wealthier
+inhabitant of the city. He looked long and anxiously round; all was
+solitary; nor was the stillness broken, save as an occasional breeze,
+from the snowy heights of the Sierra Nevada, rustled the fragrant leaves
+of the citron and pomegranate; or as the silver tinkling of waterfalls
+chimed melodiously within the gardens. The Moor's heart beat high: a
+moment more, and he had scaled the wall; and found himself upon a green
+sward, variegated by the rich colours of many a sleeping flower, and
+shaded by groves and alleys of luxuriant foliage and golden fruits.
+
+It was not long before he stood beside a house that seemed of a
+construction anterior to the Moorish dynasty. It was built over low
+cloisters formed by heavy and timeworn pillars, concealed, for the most
+part by a profusion of roses and creeping shrubs: the lattices above the
+cloisters opened upon large gilded balconies, the super-addition of
+Moriscan taste. In one only of the casements a lamp was visible; the
+rest of the mansion was dark, as if, save in that chamber, sleep kept
+watch over the inmates. It was to this window that the Moor stole; and,
+after a moment's pause, he murmured rather than sang, so low and
+whispered was his voice, the following simple verses, slightly varied
+from an old Arabian poet:--
+
+ Light of my soul, arise, arise!
+ Thy sister lights are in the skies;
+ We want thine eyes,
+ Thy joyous eyes;
+ The Night is mourning for thine eyes!
+ The sacred verse is on my sword,
+ But on my heart thy name
+ The words on each alike adored;
+ The truth of each the same,
+ The same!--alas! too well I feel
+ The heart is truer than the steel!
+ Light of my soul! upon me shine;
+ Night wakes her stars to envy mine.
+ Those eyes of thine,
+ Wild eyes of thine,
+ What stars are like those eyes of thine?
+
+As he concluded, the lattice softly opened; and a female form appeared on
+the balcony.
+
+"Ah, Leila!" said the Moor, "I see thee, and I am blessed!"
+
+"Hush!" answered Leila; "speak low, nor tarry long I fear that our
+interviews are suspected; and this," she added in a trembling voice,
+"may perhaps be the last time we shall meet."
+
+"Holy Prophet!" exclaimed Muza, passionately, "what do I hear? Why this
+mystery? why cannot I learn thine origin, thy rank, thy parents? Think
+you, beautiful Leila, that Granada holds a rouse lofty enough to disdain
+the alliance with Muza Ben Abil Gazan? and oh!" he added (sinking the
+haughty tones of his voice into accents of the softest tenderness),
+"if not too high to scorn me, what should war against our loves and our
+bridals? For worn equally on my heart were the flower of thy sweet self,
+whether the mountain top or the valley gave birth to the odour and the
+bloom."
+
+"Alas!" answered Leila, weeping, "the mystery thou complainest of is as
+dark to myself as thee. How often have I told thee that I know nothing
+of my birth or childish fortunes, save a dim memory of a more distant and
+burning clime; where, amidst sands and wastes, springs the everlasting
+cedar, and the camel grazes on stunted herbage withering in the fiery
+air? Then, it seemed to me that I had a mother: fond eyes looked on me,
+and soft songs hushed me into sleep."
+
+"Thy mother's soul has passed into mine," said the Moor, tenderly.
+
+Leila continued:--"Borne hither, I passed from childhood into youth
+within these walls. Slaves ministered to my slightest wish; and those
+who have seen both state and poverty, which I have not, tell me that
+treasures and splendour, that might glad a monarch, are prodigalised
+around me: but of ties and kindred know I little: my father, a stern and
+silent man, visits me but rarely--sometimes months pass, and I see him
+not; but I feel he loves me; and, till I knew thee, Muza, my brightest
+hours were in listening to the footsteps and flying to the arms of that
+solitary friend."
+
+"Know you not his name?"
+
+"Nor, I nor any one of the household; save perhaps Ximen, the chief of
+the slaves, an old and withered man, whose very eye chills me into fear
+and silence."
+
+"Strange!" said the Moor, musingly; "yet why think you our love is
+discovered, or can be thwarted?"
+
+"Hush! Ximen sought me this day: 'Maiden,' said he, 'men's footsteps
+have been tracked within the gardens; if your sire know this, you will
+have looked your last on Granada. Learn,' he added, in a softer voice,
+as he saw me tremble, 'that permission were easier given to thee to wed
+the wild tiger than to mate with the loftiest noble of Morisca! Beware!'
+He spoke, and left me. O Muza!" she continued, passionately wringing her
+hands, "my heart sinks within me, and omen and doom rise dark before my
+sight!"
+
+"By my father's head, these obstacles but fire my love, and I would scale
+to thy possession, though every step in the ladder were the corpses of a
+hundred foes!"
+
+Scarcely had the fiery and high-souled Moor uttered his boast, than, from
+some unseen hand amidst the groves, a javelin whirred past him, and as
+the air it raised came sharp upon his cheek, half buried its quivering
+shaft in the trunk of a tree behind him.
+
+"Fly, fly, and save thyself! O God, protect him!" cried Leila; and she
+vanished within the chamber.
+
+The Moor did not wait the result of a deadlier aim; he turned; yet, in
+the instinct of his fierce nature, not from, but against, the foe; his
+drawn scimitar in his hand, the half-suppressed cry of wrath trembling on
+his lips, he sprang forward in the direction the javelin had sped. With
+eyes accustomed to the ambuscades of Moorish warfare, he searched
+eagerly, yet warily through the dark and sighing foliage. No sign of
+life met his gaze; and at length, grimly and reluctantly, he retraced his
+steps, and quitted the demesnes; but just as he had cleared the wall, a
+voice--low, but sharp and shrill--came from the gardens.
+
+"Thou art spared," it said, "but, haply, for a more miserable doom!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
+
+The chamber into which Leila retreated bore out the character she had
+given of the interior of her home. The fashion of its ornament and
+decoration was foreign to that adopted by the Moors of Granada. It had a
+more massive and, if we may use the term, Egyptian gorgeousness. The
+walls were covered with the stuffs of the East, stiff with gold,
+embroidered upon ground of the deepest purple; strange characters,
+apparently in some foreign tongue, were wrought in the tesselated
+cornices and on the heavy ceiling, which was supported by square pillars,
+round which were twisted serpents of gold and enamel, with eyes to which
+enormous emeralds gave a green and lifelike glare: various scrolls and
+musical instruments lay scattered upon marble tables: and a solitary lamp
+of burnished silver cast a dim and subdued light around the chamber. The
+effect of the whole, though splendid, was gloomy, strange, and
+oppressive, and rather suited to the thick and cave-like architecture
+which of old protected the inhabitants of Thebes and Memphis from the
+rays of the African sun, than to the transparent heaven and light
+pavilions of the graceful orientals of Granada.
+
+Leila stood within this chamber, pale and breathless, with her lips
+apart, her hands clasped, her very soul in her ears; nor was it possible
+to conceive a more perfect ideal of some delicate and brilliant Peri,
+captured in the palace of a hostile and gloomy Genius. Her form was of
+the lightest shape consistent with the roundness of womanly beauty; and
+there was something in it of that elastic and fawnlike grace which a
+sculptor seeks to embody in his dreams of a being more aerial than those
+of earth. Her luxuriant hair was dark indeed, but a purple and glossy
+hue redeemed it from that heaviness of shade too common in the tresses of
+the Asiatics; and her complexion, naturally pale but clear and lustrous,
+would have been deemed fair even in the north. Her features, slightly
+aquiline, were formed in the rarest mould of symmetry, and her full rich
+lips disclosed teeth that might have shamed the pearl. But the chief
+charm of that exquisite countenance was in an expression of softness and
+purity, and intellectual sentiment, that seldom accompanies that cast of
+loveliness, and was wholly foreign to the voluptuous and dreamy languor
+of Moorish maidens; Leila had been educated, and the statue had received
+a soul.
+
+After a few minutes of intense suspense, she again stole to the lattice,
+gently unclosed it, and looked forth. Far, through an opening amidst the
+trees, she descried for a single moment the erect and stately figure of
+her lover, darkening the moonshine on the sward, as now, quitting his
+fruitless search, he turned his lingering gaze towards the lattice of his
+beloved: the thick and interlacing foliage quickly hid him from her eyes;
+but Leila had seen enough--she turned within, and said, as grateful tears
+trickled clown her cheeks, and she sank on her knees upon the piled
+cushions of the chamber: "God of my fathers! I bless Thee--he is safe!"
+
+"And yet (she added, as a painful thought crossed her), how may I pray
+for him? we kneel not to the same Divinity; and I have been taught to
+loathe and shudder at his creed! Alas! how will this end? Fatal was the
+hour when he first beheld me in yonder gardens; more fatal still the hour
+in which he crossed the barrier, and told Leila that she was beloved by
+the hero whose arm was the shelter, whose name is the blessing, of
+Granada. Ah, me! Ah, me!"
+
+The young maiden covered her face with her hands, and sank into a
+passionate reverie, broken only by her sobs. Some time had passed in
+this undisturbed indulgence of her grief, when the arras was gently put
+aside, and a man, of remarkable garb and mien, advanced into the chamber,
+pausing as he beheld her dejected attitude, and gazing on her with a look
+on which pity and tenderness seemed to struggle against habitual severity
+and sternness.
+
+"Leila!" said the intruder.
+
+Leila started, and and a deep blush suffused her countenance; she dashed
+the tears from her eyes, and came forward with a vain attempt to smile.
+
+"My father, welcome!"
+
+The stranger seated himself on the cushions, and motioned Leila to his
+side.
+
+"These tears are fresh upon thy cheek," said he, gravely; "they are the
+witness of thy race! our daughters are born to weep, and our sons to
+groan! ashes are on the head of the mighty, and the Fountains of the
+Beautiful run with gall! Oh that we could but struggle--that we could
+but dare--that we could raise up, our heads, and unite against the
+bondage of the evil doer! It may not be--but one man shall avenge a
+nation!"
+
+The dark face of Leila's father, well fitted to express powerful emotion,
+became terrible in its wrath and passion; his brow and lip worked
+convulsively; but the paroxsym was brief; and scarce could she shudder
+at its intensity ere it had subsided into calm.
+
+"Enough of these thoughts, which thou, a woman and a child, art not
+formed to witness. Leila, thou hast been nurtured with tenderness, and
+schooled with care. Harsh and unloving may I have seemed to thee, but I
+would have shed the best drops of my heart to have saved thy young years
+from a single pang. Nay, listen to me silently. That thou mightest one
+day be worthy of thy race, and that thine hours might not pass in
+indolent and weary lassitude, thou hast been taught lessons of a
+knowledge rarely to thy sex. Not thine the lascivious arts of the
+Moorish maidens; not thine their harlot songs, and their dances of lewd
+delight; thy delicate limbs were but taught the attitude that Nature
+dedicates to the worship of a God, and the music of thy voice was tuned
+to the songs of thy fallen country, sad with the memory of her wrongs,
+animated with the names of her heroes, with the solemnity of her prayers.
+These scrolls, and the lessons of our seers, have imparted to thee such
+of our science and our history as may fit thy mind to aspire, and thy
+heart to feel for a sacred cause. Thou listenest to me, Leila?"
+
+Perplexed and wondering, for never before had her father addressed her in
+such a strain, the maiden answered with an earnestness of manner that
+seemed to content the questioner; and he resumed, with an altered,
+hollow, solemn voice:
+
+"Then curse the persecutors. Daughter of the great Hebrew race, arise
+and curse the Moorish taskmaster and spoiler!"
+
+As he spoke, the adjuror himself rose, lifting his right hand on high;
+while his left touched the shoulder of the maiden. But she, after gazing
+a moment in wild and terrified amazement upon his face, fell cowering at
+his knees; and, clasping them imploringly, exclaimed in scarce articulate
+murmurs:
+
+"Oh, spare me! spare me!"
+
+The Hebrew, for such he was, surveyed her, as she thus quailed at his
+feet, with a look of rage and scorn: his hand wandered to his poniard, he
+half unsheathed it, thrust it back with a muttered curse, and then,
+deliberately drawing it forth, cast it on the ground beside her.
+
+"Degenerate girl!" he said, in accents that vainly struggled for calm,
+"if thou hast admitted to thy heart one unworthy thought towards a
+Moorish infidel, dig deep and root it out, even with the knife, and to
+the death--so wilt thou save this hand from that degrading task."
+
+He drew himself hastily from her grasp, and left the unfortunate girl
+alone and senseless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AMBITION DISTORTED INTO VICE BY LAW.
+
+On descending a broad flight of stairs from the apartment, the Hebrew
+encountered an old man, habited in loose garments of silk and fur, upon
+whose withered and wrinkled face life seemed scarcely to struggle against
+the advance of death--so haggard, wan, and corpse-like was its aspect.
+
+"Ximen," said the Israelite, "trusty and beloved servant, follow me to
+the cavern." He did not tarry for an answer, but continued his way with
+rapid strides through various courts and alleys, till he came at length
+into a narrow, dark, and damp gallery, that seemed cut from the living
+rock. At its entrance was a strong grate, which gave way to the Hebrew's
+touch upon the spring, though the united strength of a hundred men could
+not have moved it from its hinge. Taking up a brazen lamp that burnt in
+a niche within it, the Hebrew paused impatiently till the feeble steps of
+the old man reached the spot; and then, reclosing the grate, pursued his
+winding way for a considerable distance, till he stopped suddenly by a
+part of the rock which seemed in no respect different from the rest: and
+so artfully contrived and concealed was the door which he now opened, and
+so suddenly did it yield to his hand, that it appeared literally the
+effect of enchantment, when the rock yawned, and discovered a circular
+cavern, lighted with brazen lamps, and spread with hangings and cushions
+of thick furs. Upon rude and seemingly natural pillars of rock, various
+antique and rusty arms were suspended; in large niches were deposited
+scrolls, clasped and bound with iron; and a profusion of strange and
+uncouth instruments and machines (in which modern science might, perhaps,
+discover the tools of chemical invention) gave a magical and ominous
+aspect to the wild abode.
+
+The Hebrew cast himself on a couch of furs; and, as the old man entered
+and closed the door, "Ximen," said he, "fill out wine--it is a soothing
+counsellor, and I need it."
+
+Extracting from one of the recesses of the cavern a flask and goblet,
+Ximen offered to his lord a copious draught of the sparkling vintage of
+the Vega, which seemed to invigorate and restore him.
+
+"Old man," said he, concluding the potation with a deep-drawn sigh, "fill
+to thyself-drink till thy veins feel young."
+
+Ximen obeyed the mandate but imperfectly; the wine just touched his lips,
+and the goblet was put aside.
+
+"Ximen," resumed the Israelite, "how many of our race have been butchered
+by the avarice of the Moorish kings since first thou didst set foot
+within the city?"
+
+"Three thousand--the number was completed last winter, by the order of
+Jusef the vizier; and their goods and coffers are transformed into shafts
+and cimiters against the dogs of Galilee."
+
+"Three thousand--no more! three thousand only! I would the number had
+been tripled, for the interest is becoming due!"
+
+"My brother, and my son, and my grandson, are among the number," said the
+old man, and his face grew yet more deathlike.
+
+"Their monuments shall be in hecatombs of their tyrants. They shall not,
+at least, call the Jews niggards in revenge."
+
+"But pardon me, noble chief of a fallen people; thinkest thou we shall be
+less despoiled and trodden under foot by yon haughty and stiff-necked
+Nazarenes, than by the Arabian misbelievers?"
+
+"Accursed, in truth, are both," returned the Hebrew; "but the one promise
+more fairly than the other. I have seen this Ferdinand, and his proud
+queen; they are pledged to accord us rights and immunities we have never
+known before in Europe."
+
+"And they will not touch our traffic, our gains, our gold?"
+
+"Out on thee!" cried the fiery Israelite, stamping on the ground. "I
+would all the gold of earth were sunk into the everlasting pit! It is
+this mean, and miserable, and loathsome leprosy of avarice, that gnaws
+away from our whole race the heart, the soul, nay--the very form, of man!
+Many a time, when I have seen the lordly features of the descendants of
+Solomon and Joshua (features that stamp the nobility of the eastern world
+born to mastery and command) sharpened and furrowed by petty cares,--when
+I have looked upon the frame of the strong man bowed, like a crawling
+reptile, to some huckstering bargainer of silks and unguents,--and heard
+the voice, that should be raising the battle-cry, smoothed into fawning
+accents of base fear, or yet baser hope,--I have asked myself, if I am
+indeed of the blood of Israel! and thanked the great Jehovah that he hath
+spared me at least the curse that hath blasted my brotherhood into
+usurers and slaves"
+
+Ximen prudently forbore an answer to enthusiasm which he neither shared
+nor understood; but, after a brief silence, turned back the stream of the
+conversation.
+
+"You resolve, then, upon prosecuting vengeance on the Moors, at
+whatsoever hazard of the broken faith of these Nazarenes?"
+
+"Ay, the vapour of human blood hath risen unto heaven, and, collected
+into thunder-clouds, hangs over the doomed and guilty city. And now,
+Ximen, I have a new cause for hatred to the Moors: the flower that I have
+reared and watched, the spoiler hath sought to pluck it from my hearth.
+Leila--thou hast guarded her ill, Ximen; and, wert thou not endeared to
+me by thy very malice and vices, the rising sun should have seen thy
+trunk on the waters of the Darro."
+
+"My lord," replied Ximen, "if thou, the wisest of our people, canst not
+guard a maiden from love, how canst thou see crime in the dull eyes and
+numbed senses of a miserable old man?"
+
+The Israelite did not answer, nor seem to hear this deprecatory
+remonstrance. He appeared rather occupied with his own thoughts; and,
+speaking to himself, he muttered, "It must be so: the sacrifice is hard--
+the danger great; but here, at least, it is more immediate. It shall be
+done. Ximen," he continued, speaking aloud; "dost thou feel assured that
+even mine own countrymen, mine own tribe, know me not as one of them?
+Were my despised birth and religion published, my limbs would be torn
+asunder as an impostor; and all the arts of the Cabala could not save
+me."
+
+"Doubt not, great master; none in Granada, save thy faithful Ximen, know
+thy secret."
+
+"So let me dream and hope. And now to my work; for this night must be
+spent in toil."
+
+The Hebrew drew before him some of the strange instruments we have
+described; and took from the recesses in the rock several scrolls.
+The old man lay at his feet, ready to obey his behests; but, to all
+appearance, rigid and motionless as the dead, whom his blanched hues and
+shrivelled form resembled. It was, indeed, as the picture of the
+enchanter at his work, and the corpse of some man of old, revived from
+the grave to minister to his spells, and execute his commands.
+
+Enough in the preceding conversation has transpired to convince the
+reader, that the Hebrew, in whom he has already detected the Almamen of
+the Alhambra, was of no character common to his tribe. Of a lineage that
+shrouded itself in the darkness of his mysterious people, in their day of
+power, and possessed of immense wealth, which threw into poverty the
+resources of Gothic princes,--the youth of that remarkable man had been
+spent, not in traffic and merchandise but travel and study.
+
+As a child, his home had been in Granada. He had seen his father
+butchered by the late king, Muley Abul Hassan, without other crime than
+his reputed riches; and his body literally cut open, to search for the
+jewels it was supposed he had swallowed. He saw, and, boy as he was he
+vowed revenge. A distant kinsman bore the orphan to lands more secure
+from persecution; and the art with which the Jews concealed their wealth,
+scattering it over various cities, had secured to Almamen the treasures
+the tyrant of Granada had failed to grasp.
+
+He had visited the greater part of the world then known; and resided for
+many years at the court of the sultan of that hoary Egypt, which still
+retained its fame for abstruse science and magic lore. He had not in
+vain applied himself to such tempting and wild researches; and had
+acquired many of those secrets now perhaps lost for ever to the world.
+We do not mean to intimate that he attained to what legend and
+superstition impose upon our faith as the art of sorcery. He could
+neither command the elements nor pierce the veil of the future-scatter
+armies with a word, nor pass from spot to spot by the utterance of a
+charmed formula. But men who, for ages, had passed their lives in
+attempting all the effects that can astonish and awe the vulgar, could
+not but learn some secrets which all the more sober wisdom of modern
+times would search ineffectually to solve or to revive. And many of such
+arts, acquired mechanically (their invention often the work of a chemical
+accident), those who attained to them could not always explain, not
+account for the phenomena they created, so that the mightiness of their
+own deceptions deceived themselves; and they often believed they were the
+masters of the Nature to which they were, in reality, but erratic and
+wild disciples. Of such was the student in that grim cavern. He was, in
+some measure, the dupe, partly of his own bewildered wisdom, partly of
+the fervour of an imagination exceedingly high-wrought and enthusiastic.
+His own gorgeous vanity intoxicated him: and, if it be an historical
+truth that the kings of the ancient world, blinded by their own power,
+had moments in which they believed themselves more than men, it is not
+incredible that sages, elevated even above kings, should conceive a
+frenzy as weak, or, it may be, as sublime: and imagine that they did not
+claim in vain the awful dignity with which the faith of the multitude
+invested their faculties and gifts.
+
+But, though the accident of birth, which excluded him from all field for
+energy and ambition, had thus directed the powerful mind of Almamen to
+contemplation and study, nature had never intended passions so fierce for
+the calm, though visionary, pursuits to which he was addicted. Amidst
+scrolls and seers, he had pined for action and glory; and, baffled in all
+wholesome egress, by the universal exclusion which, in every land, and
+from every faith, met the religion he belonged to, the faculties within
+him ran riot, producing gigantic but baseless schemes, which, as one
+after the other crumbled away, left behind feelings of dark misanthropy
+and intense revenge.
+
+Perhaps, had his religion been prosperous and powerful, he might have
+been a sceptic; persecution and affliction made him a fanatic. Yet, true
+to that prominent characteristic of the old Hebrew race, which made them
+look to a Messiah only as a warrior and a prince, and which taught them
+to associate all their hopes and schemes with worldly victories and
+power, Almamen desired rather to advance, than to obey, his religion.
+He cared little for its precepts, he thought little of its doctrines;
+but, night and day, he revolved his schemes for its earthly restoration
+and triumph.
+
+At that time, the Moors in Spain were far more deadly persecutors of the
+Jews than the Christians were. Amidst the Spanish cities on the coast,
+that merchant tribe had formed commercial connections with the
+Christians, sufficiently beneficial, both to individuals and to
+communities, to obtain for them, not only toleration, but something of
+personal friendship, wherever men bought and sold in the market-place.
+And the gloomy fanaticism which afterwards stained the fame of the great
+Ferdinand, and introduced the horrors of the Inquisition, had not yet
+made it self more than fitfully visible. But the Moors had treated this
+unhappy people with a wholesale and relentless barbarity. At Granada,
+under the reign of the fierce father of Boabdil,--"that king with the
+tiger heart,"--the Jews had been literally placed without the pale of
+humanity; and even under the mild and contemplative Boabdil himself, they
+had been plundered without mercy, and, if suspected of secreting their
+treasures, massacred without scruple; the wants of the state continued
+their unrelenting accusers,--their wealth, their inexpiable crime.
+
+It was in the midst of these barbarities that Almamen, for the first time
+since the day when the death-shriek of his agonised father rang in his
+ears, suddenly returned to Granada. He saw the unmitigated miseries of
+his brethern, and he remembered and repeated his vow. His name changed,
+his kindred dead, none remembered, in the mature Almamen, the beardless
+child of Issachar, the Jew. He had long, indeed, deemed it advisable to
+disguise his faith; and was known, throughout the African kingdoms, but
+as the potent santon, or the wise magician.
+
+This fame soon lifted him, in Granada, high in the councils of the court.
+Admitted to the intimacy of Muley Hassan, with Boabdil, and the queen
+mother, he had conspired against that monarch; and had lived, at least,
+to avenge his father upon the royal murderer. He was no less intimate
+with Boabdil; but steeled against fellowship or affection for all men out
+of the pale of his faith, he saw in the confidence of the king only the
+blindness of a victim.
+
+Serpent as he was, he cared not through what mire of treachery and fraud
+he trailed his baleful folds, so that, at last, he could spring upon his
+prey. Nature had given him sagacity and strength. The curse of
+circumstance had humbled, but reconciled him to the dust. He had the
+crawl of the reptile,--he had, also, its poison and its fangs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE LION IN THE NET
+
+IT was the next night, not long before daybreak, that the King of Granada
+abruptly summoned to his council Jusef, his vizier. The old man found
+Boabdil in great disorder and excitement; but he almost deemed his
+sovereign mad, when he received from him the order to seize upon the
+person of Muza Ben Abil Gazan, and to lodge him in the strongest dungeon
+of the Vermilion Tower. Presuming upon Boabdil's natural mildness, the
+vizier ventured to remonstrate,--to suggest the danger of laying violent
+hands upon a chief so beloved,--and to inquire what cause should be
+assigned for the outrage.
+
+The veins swelled like cords upon Boabdil's brow, as he listened to the
+vizier; and his answer was short and peremptory.
+
+"Am I yet a king, that I should fear a subject, or excuse my will? Thou
+hast my orders; there are my signet and the firman: obedience or the
+bow-string!"
+
+Never before had Boabdil so resembled his dread father in speech and air;
+the vizier trembled to the soles of his feet, and withdrew in silence.
+Boabdil watched him depart; and then, clasping his hands in great
+emotion, exclaimed, "O lips of the dead! ye have warned me; and to you
+I sacrifice the friend of my youth."
+
+On quitting Boabdil the vizier, taking with him some of those foreign
+slaves of a seraglio, who know no sympathy with human passion outside its
+walls, bent his way to the palace of Muza, sorely puzzled and perplexed.
+He did not, however, like to venture upon the hazard of the alarm it
+might occasion throughout the neighbourhood, if he endeavoured, at so
+unseasonable an hour, to force an entrance. He resolved, rather, with
+his train to wait at a little distance, till, with the growing dawn, the
+gates should be unclosed, and the inmates of the palace astir.
+
+Accordingly, cursing his stars, and wondering at his mission, Jusef, and
+his silent and ominous attendants, concealed themselves in a small copse
+adjoining the palace, until the daylight fairly broke over the awakened
+city. He then passed into the palace; and was conducted to a hall, where
+he found the renowned Moslem already astir, and conferring with some
+Zegri captains upon the tactics of a sortie designed for that day.
+
+It was with so evident a reluctance and apprehension that Jusef
+approached the prince, that the fierce and quick-sighted Zegris instantly
+suspected some evil intention in his visit; and when Muza, in surprise,
+yielded to the prayer of the vizier for a private audience, it was with
+scowling brows and sparkling eyes that the Moorish warriors left the
+darling of the nobles alone with the messenger of their king.
+
+"By the tomb of the prophet!" said one of the Zegris, as he quitted the
+hall, "the timid Boabdil suspects our Ben Abil Gazan. I learned of this
+before."
+
+"Hush!" said another of the band; "let us watch. If the king touch a
+hair of Muza's head, Allah have mercy on his sins!"
+
+Meanwhile, the vizier, in silence, showed to Muza the firman and the
+signet; and then, without venturing to announce the place to which he was
+commissioned to conduct the prince, besought him to follow at once. Muza
+changed colour, but not with fear.
+
+"Alas!" said he, in a tone of deep sorrow, "can it be that I have fallen
+under my royal kinsman's suspicion or displeasure? But no matter; proud
+to set to Granada an example of valour in her defence, be it mine to set,
+also, an example of obedience to her king. Go on--I will follow thee.
+Yet stay, you will have no need of guards; let us depart by a private
+egress: the Zegris might misgive, did they see me leave the palace with
+you at the very time the army are assembling in the Vivarrambla, and
+awaiting my presence. This way."
+
+Thus saying, Muza, who, fierce as he was, obeyed every impulse that the
+oriental loyalty dictated from a subject to a king, passed from the hall
+to a small door that admitted into the garden, and in thoughtful silence
+accompanied the vizier towards the Alhambra. As they passed the copse in
+which Muza, two nights before, had met with Almamen, the Moor, lifting
+his head suddenly, beheld fixed upon him the dark eyes of the magician,
+as he emerged from the trees. Muza thought there was in those eyes a
+malign and hostile exultation; but Almamen, gravely saluting him, passed
+on through the grove: the prince did not deign to look back, or he might
+once more have encountered that withering gaze.
+
+"Proud heathen!" muttered Almamen to himself, "thy father filled his
+treasuries from the gold of many a tortured Hebrew; and even thou, too
+haughty to be the miser, hast been savage enough to play the bigot. Thy
+name is a curse in Israel; yet dost thou lust after the daughter of our
+despised race, and, could defeated passion sting thee, I were avenged.
+Ay, sweep on, with thy stately step and lofty crest-thou goest to chains,
+perhaps to death."
+
+As Almamen thus vented his bitter spirit, the last gleam of the white
+robes of Muza vanished from his gaze. He paused a moment, turned away
+abruptly, and said, half aloud, "Vengeance, not on one man only, but a
+whole race! Now for the Nazarene."
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LEILA BY LYTTON, V1 ***
+By Edward Bulwer Lytton
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