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+Project Gutenberg EBook, Leila by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Volume 4
+#199 in our series by Edward Bulwer Lytton
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+Title: Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book IV.
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+Release Date: January 2006  [EBook #9759]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 9, 2003]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LEILA, BY LYTTON, V4 ***
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+
+
+                             LEILA
+
+                              OR,
+
+                     THE SIEGE OF GRANADA
+
+                              BY
+
+                     EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
+
+
+                            Book IV.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER.  I.
+
+LEILA IN THE CASTLE--THE SIEGE.
+
+The calmer contemplations and more holy anxieties of Leila were, at
+length, broken in upon by intelligence, the fearful interest of which
+absorbed the whole mind and care of every inhabitant of the castle.
+Boabdil el Chico had taken the field, at the head of a numerous army.
+Rapidly scouring the country, he had descended, one after one, upon the
+principal fortresses, which Ferdinand had left, strongly garrisoned, in
+the immediate neighbourhood.  His success was as immediate as it was
+signal; the terror of his arms began, once more to spread far and wide;
+every day swelled his ranks with new recruits; and from the snow-clad
+summits of the Sierra Nevada poured down, in wild hordes, the fierce
+mountain race, who, accustomed to eternal winter, made a strange
+contrast, in their rugged appearance and shaggy clothing, to the
+glittering and civilised soldiery of Granada.
+
+Moorish towns, which had submitted to Ferdinand, broke from their
+allegiance, and sent their ardent youth and experienced veterans to the
+standard of the Keys and Crescent.  To add to the sudden panic of the
+Spaniards, it went forth that a formidable magician, who seemed inspired
+rather with the fury of a demon than the valour of a man, had made an
+abrupt appearance in the ranks of the Moslems.  Wherever the Moors shrank
+back from wall or tower, down which poured the boiling pitch, or rolled
+the deadly artillery of the besieged, this sorcerer--rushing into the
+midst of the flagging force, and waving, with wild gestures, a white
+banner, supposed by both Moor and Christian to be the work of magic and
+preternatural spells--dared every danger, and escaped every weapon: with
+voice, with prayer, with example, he fired the Moors to an enthusiasm
+that revived the first days of Mohammedan conquest; and tower after
+tower, along the mighty range of the mountain chain of fortresses, was
+polluted by the wave and glitter of the ever-victorious banner.  The
+veteran, Mendo de Quexada, who, with a garrison of two hundred and fifty
+men, held the castle of Almamen, was, however, undaunted by the
+unprecedented successes of Boabdil.  Aware of the approaching storm, he
+spent the days of peace yet accorded to him in making every preparation
+for the siege that he foresaw; messengers were despatched to Ferdinand;
+new out-works were added to the castle; ample store of provisions laid
+in; and no precaution omitted that could still preserve to the Spaniards
+a fortress that, from its vicinity to Granada, its command of the Vega
+and the valleys of the Alpuxarras, was the bitterest thorn in the side of
+the Moorish power.
+
+It was early, one morning, that Leila stood by the lattice of her lofty
+chamber gazing, with many and mingled emotions, on the distant domes of
+Granada, as they slept in the silent sunshine.  Her heart, for the
+moment, was busy with the thoughts of home, and the chances and peril of
+the time were forgotten.
+
+The sound of martial music, afar off, broke upon her reveries; she
+started, and listened breathlessly; it became more distinct and clear.
+The clash of the zell, the boom of the African drum, and the wild and
+barbarous blast of the Moorish clarion, were now each distinguishable
+from the other; and, at length, as she gazed and listened, winding along
+the steeps of the mountain were seen the gleaming spears and pennants of
+the Moslem vanguard.  Another moment and the whole castle was astir.
+
+Mendo de Quexada, hastily arming, repaired, himself, to the battlements;
+and, from her lattice, Leila beheld him, from time to time, stationing to
+the best advantage his scanty troops.  In a few minutes she was joined by
+Donna Inez and the women of the castle, who fearfully clustered round
+their mistress,--not the less disposed, however, to gratify the passion
+of the sex, by a glimpse through the lattice at the gorgeous array of the
+Moorish army.
+
+The casements of Leila's chamber were peculiarly adapted to command a
+safe nor insufficient view of the progress of the enemy; and, with a
+beating heart and flushing cheek, the Jewish maiden, deaf to the voices
+around her, imagined she could already descry amidst the horsemen the
+lion port and snowy garments of Muza Ben Abil Gazan.
+
+What a situation was hers!  Already a Christian, could she hope for the
+success of the infidel? ever a woman, could she hope for the defeat of
+her lover?  But the time for meditation on her destiny was but brief; the
+detachment of the Moorish cavalry was now just without the walls of the
+little town that girded the castle, and the loud clarion of the heralds
+summoned the garrison to surrender.
+
+"Not while one stone stands upon another!" was the short answer of
+Quexada; and, in ten minutes afterwards, the sullen roar of the artillery
+broke from wall and tower over the vales below.
+
+It was then that the women, from Leila's lattice, beheld, slowly
+marshalling themselves in order, the whole power and pageantry of the
+besieging army.  Thick-serried--line after line, column upon column--they
+spread below the frowning steep.  The sunbeams lighted up that goodly
+array, as it swayed, and murmured, and advanced, like the billows of a
+glittering sea.  The royal standard was soon descried waving above the
+pavilion of Boabdil; and the king himself, mounted on his cream-coloured
+charger, which was covered with trappings of cloth-of-gold, was
+recognised amongst the infantry, whose task it was to lead the assault.
+
+"Pray with us, my daughter!" cried Inez, falling on her knees.-Alas!
+what could Leila pray for?
+
+Four days and four nights passed away in that memorable siege; for the
+moon, then at her full, allowed no respite, even in night itself.  Their
+numbers, and their vicinity to Granada, gave the besiegers the advantage
+of constant relays, and troop succeeded to troop; so that the weary had
+ever successors in the vigour of new assailants.
+
+On the fifth day, all of the fortress, save the keep (an immense tower),
+was in the hands of the Moslems; and in this last hold, the worn-out and
+scanty remnant of the garrison mustered, in the last hope of a brave,
+despair.
+
+Quexada appeared, covered with gore and dust-his eyes bloodshot, his
+cheek haggard and hollow, his locks blanched with sudden age-in the hall
+of the tower, where the women, half dead with terror, were assembled.
+
+"Food!" cried he,--"food and wine!--it may be our last banquet."
+
+His wife threw her arms round him.  "Not yet," he cried, "not yet; we
+will have one embrace before we part."
+
+"Is there, then, no hope?" said Inez, with a pale cheek, yet steady eye.
+
+"None; unless to-morrow's dawn gild the spears of Ferdinand's army upon
+yonder hills.  Till morn we may hold out."  As he spoke, he hastily
+devoured some morsels of food, drained a huge goblet of wine, and
+abruptly quitted the chamber.
+
+At that moment, the women distinctly heard the loud shouts of the Moors;
+and Leila, approaching the grated casement, could perceive the approach
+of what seemed to her like moving wails.
+
+Covered by ingenious constructions of wood and thick hides, the besiegers
+advanced to the foot of the tower in comparative shelter from the burning
+streams which still poured, fast and seething, from the battlements;
+while, in the rear came showers of darts and cross-bolts from the more
+distant Moors, protecting the work of the engineer, and piercing through
+almost every loophole and crevice in the fortress.
+
+Meanwhile the stalwart governor beheld, with dismay and despair, the
+preparations of the engineers, whom the wooden screen-works protected
+from every weapon.
+
+"By the Holy Sepulchre!" cried he, gnashing his teeth, "they are mining
+the tower, and we shall be buried in its ruins!  Look out, Gonsalvo!  see
+you not a gleam of spears yonder over the mountain?  Mine eyes are dim
+with watching."
+
+"Alas! brave Mendo, it is only the sloping sun upon the snows--but there
+is hope yet."
+
+The soldier's words terminated in a shrill and sudden cry of agony; and
+he fell dead by the side of Quexada, the brain crushed by a bolt from a
+Moorish arquebus.
+
+"My best warrior!" said Quexada; "peace be with him!  Ho, there! see you
+yon desperate infidel urging on the miners?  By the heavens above, it is
+he of the white banner!--it is the sorcerer!  Fire on him! he is without
+the shelter of the woodworks."
+
+Twenty shafts, from wearied and nerveless arms, fell innocuous round the
+form of Almamen: and as, waving aloft his ominous banner, he disappeared
+again behind the screen-works, the Spaniards almost fancied they could
+hear his exulting and demon laugh.
+
+The sixth day came, and the work of the enemy was completed.  The tower
+was entirely undermined--the foundations rested only upon wooden props,
+which, with a humanity that was characteristic of Boabdil, had been
+placed there in order that the besieged might escape ere the final crash
+of their last hold.
+
+It was now noon: the whole Moorish force, quitting the plain, occupied
+the steep that spread below the tower, in multitudinous array and
+breathless expectation.  The miners stood aloof--the Spaniards lay
+prostrate and exhausted upon the battlements, like mariners who, after
+every effort against the storm, await, resigned, and almost indifferent,
+the sweep of the fatal surge.
+
+Suddenly the lines of the Moors gave way, and Boabdil himself, with Muza
+at his right hand, and Almamen on his left, advanced towards the foot of
+the tower.  At the same time, the Ethiopian guards, each bearing a torch,
+marched slowly in the rear; and from the midst of them paced the royal
+herald and sounded the last warning.  The hush of the immense armament--
+the glare of the torches, lighting the ebon faces and giant forms of
+their bearers--the majestic appearance of the king himself--the heroic
+aspect of Muza--the bare head and glittering banner of Almamen--all
+combined with the circumstances of the time to invest the spectacle with
+something singularly awful, and, perhaps, sublime.
+
+Quexada turned his eyes, mutely, round the ghastly faces of his warriors,
+and still made not the signal.  His lips muttered--his eyes glared: when,
+suddenly, he heard below the wail of women; and the thought of Inez, the
+bride of his youth, the partner of his age, came upon him; and, with a
+trembling hand, he lowered the yet unquailing standard of Spain.  Then,
+the silence below broke into a mighty shout, which shook the grim tower
+to its unsteady and temporary base.
+
+"Arise, my friends," he said, with a bitter sigh; "we have fought like
+men--and our country will not blush for us."  He descended the winding
+stairs--his soldiers followed him with faltering steps: the gates of the
+keep unfolded, and these gallant Christians surrendered themselves to the
+Moor.
+
+"Do with it as you will," said Quexada, as he laid the keys at the hoofs
+of Boabdil's barb; "but there are women in the garrison, who--"
+
+"Are sacred," interrupted the king.  "At once we accord their liberty,
+and free transport whithersoever ye would desire.  Speak, then!  To what
+place of safety shall they be conducted?"
+
+"Generous king!" replied the veteran Quexada, brushing away his tears
+with the back of his hand; "you take the sting from our shame.  We accept
+your offer in the same spirit in which it is made.  Across the mountains,
+on the verge of the plain of Olfadez, I possess a small castle,
+ungarrisoned and unfortified.  Thence, should the war take that
+direction, the women can readily obtain safe conduct to the queen at
+Cordova."
+
+"Be it so," returned Boabdil.  Then, with Oriental delicacy, selecting
+the eldest of the officers round him, he gave him instructions to enter
+the castle, and, with a strong guard, provide for the safety of the
+women, according to the directions of Quexada.  To another of his
+officers he confided the Spanish prisoners, and gave the signal to his
+army to withdraw from the spot, leaving only a small body to complete the
+ruin of the fortress.
+
+Accompanied by Almamen and his principal officers, Boabdil now hastened
+towards Granada; and while, with slower progress, Quexada and his
+companions, under a strong escort, took their way across the Vega, a
+sudden turn in their course brought abruptly before them the tower they
+had so valiantly defended.  There it still stood, proud and stern, amidst
+the blackened and broken wrecks around it, shooting aloft, dark and grim,
+against the sky.  Another moment, and a mighty crash sounded on their
+ears, while the tower fell to the earth, amidst volumes of wreathing
+smoke and showers of dust, which were borne, by the concussion to the
+spot on which they took their last gaze of the proudest fortress on which
+the Moors of Granada had beheld, from their own walls, the standard of
+Arragon and Castile.
+
+At the same time, Leila--thus brought so strangely within the very reach
+of her father and her lover, and yet, by a mysterious fate, still divided
+from both,--with Donna Inez, and the rest of the females of the garrison,
+pursued her melancholy path along the ridges of the mountains.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ALMAMEN'S PROPOSED ENTERPRISE.--THE THREE ISRAELITES--CIRCUMSTANCE
+IMPRESSES EACH CHARACTER WITH A VARYING DIE.
+
+Boadbil followed up his late success with a series of brilliant assaults
+on-the neighbouring fortresses.  Granada, like a strong man bowed to the
+ground, wrenched one after one the bands that had crippled her liberty
+and strength; and, at length, after regaining a considerable portion of
+the surrounding territory, the king resolved to lay siege to the seaport
+of Salobrena.  Could he obtain this town, Boabdil, by establishing
+communication between the sea and Granada, would both be enabled to avail
+himself of the assistance of his African allies, and also prevent the
+Spaniards from cutting off supplies to the city, should they again
+besiege it.  Thither, then, accompanied by Muza, the Moorish king bore
+his victorious standard.
+
+On the eve of his departure, Almamen sought the king's presence.  A great
+change had come over the canton since the departure of Ferdinand; his
+wonted stateliness of mien was gone; his eyes were sunk and hollow; his
+manner disturbed and absent.  In fact, his love for his daughter made the
+sole softness of his character; and that daughter was in the hands of the
+king who had sentenced the father to the tortures of the Inquisition!
+To what dangers might she not be subjected, by the intolerant zeal of
+conversion! and could that frame, and gentle heart, brave the terrific
+engines that might be brought against her fears?  "Better," thought he,
+"that she should perish, even by the torture, than adopt that hated
+faith."  He gnashed his teeth in agony at either alternative.  His
+dreams, his objects, his revenge, his ambition--all forsook him: one
+single hope, one thought, completely mastered his stormy passions and
+fitful intellect.
+
+In this mood the pretended santon met Boabdil.  He represented to the
+king, over whom his influence had prodigiously increased since the late
+victories of the Moors, the necessity of employing the armies of
+Ferdinand at a distance.  He proposed, in furtherance of this policy, to
+venture himself in Cordova; to endeavour secretly to stir up those Moors,
+in that, their ancient kingdom, who had succumbed to the Spanish yoke,
+and whose hopes might naturally be inflamed by the recent successes of
+Boabdil; and, at least, to foment such disturbances as might afford the
+king sufficient time to complete his designs, and recruit his force by
+aid of the powers with which he was in league.
+
+The representations of Almamen at length conquered Boabdil's reluctance
+to part with his sacred guide; and it was finally arranged that the
+Israelite should at once depart from the city.
+
+As Almamen pursued homeward his solitary way, he found himself suddenly
+accosted in the Hebrew tongue.  He turned hastily, and saw before him an
+old man in the Jewish gown: he recognised Elias, one of the wealthiest
+and most eminent of the race of Israel.
+
+"Pardon me, wise countryman!" said the Jew, bowing to the earth, "but I
+cannot resist the temptation of claiming kindred with one through whom
+the horn of Israel may be so triumphantly exalted."
+
+"Hush, man!" said Almamen, quickly, and looking sharply round; "I thy
+countryman!  Art thou not, as thy speech betokens, an Israelite?"
+
+"Yea," returned the Jew, "and of the same tribe as thy honoured father--
+peace be with his ashes!  I remembered thee at once, boy though thou wert
+when thy steps shook off the dust against Granada.  I remembered thee, I
+say, at once, on thy return; but I have kept thy secret, trusting that,
+through thy soul and genius, thy fallen brethren might put off sackcloth
+and feast upon the house-tops."
+
+Almamen looked hard at the keen, sharp, Arab features of the Jew; and at
+length he answered, "And how can Israel be restored? wilt thou fight for
+her?"
+
+"I am too old, son of Issachar, to bear arms; but our tribes are many,
+and our youth strong.  Amid these disturbances between dog and dog--"
+
+"The lion may get his own," interrupted Almamen, impetuously,--"let us
+hope it.  Hast thou heard of the new persecutions against us that the
+false Nazarene king has already commenced in Cordova--persecutions that
+make the heart sick and the blood cold?"
+
+"Alas!" replied Elias, "such woes indeed have not failed to reach mine
+ear; and I have kindred, near and beloved kindred, wealthy and honoured
+men, scattered throughout that land."
+
+"Were it not better that they should die on the field than by the rack?"
+exclaimed Almamen, fiercely.  "God of my fathers! if there be yet a spark
+of manhood left amongst thy people, let thy servant fan it to a flame,
+that shall burn as the fire burns the stubble, so that the earth may bare
+before the blaze!"
+
+"Nay," said Elias, dismayed rather than excited by the vehemence of his
+comrade,--"be not rash, son of Issachar, be not rash: peradventure thou
+wilt but exasperate the wrath of the rulers, and our substance thereby
+will be utterly consumed."
+
+Almamen drew back, placed his hand quietly on the Jew's shoulder, looked
+him hard in the face, and, gently laughing, turned away.
+
+Elias did not attempt to arrest his steps.  "Impracticable," he muttered;
+"impracticable and dangerous!  I always thought so.  He may do us harm:
+were he not so strong and fierce, I would put my knife under his left
+rib.  Verily, gold is a great thing; and--out on me! the knaves at home
+will be wasting the oil, now they know old Elias is abroad."  Thereat the
+Jew drew his cloak around him, and quickened his pace.
+
+Almamen, in the meanwhile, sought, through dark and subterranean
+passages, known only to himself, his accustomed home.  He passed much of
+the night alone; but, ere the morning star announced to the mountain tops
+the presence of the sun, he stood, prepared for his journey, in his
+secret vault, by the door of the subterranean passages, with old Ximen
+beside him.
+
+"I go, Ximen," said Almamen, "upon a doubtful quest: whether I discover
+my daughter, and succeed in bearing her in safety from their
+contaminating grasp, or whether I fall into their snares and perish,
+there is an equal chance that I may return no more to Granada.  Should
+this be so, you will be heir to such wealth as I leave in these places I
+know that your age will be consoled for the lack of children when your
+eyes look upon the laugh of gold."
+
+Ximen bowed low, and mumbled out some inaudible protestations and thanks.
+Almamen sighed heavily as he looked round the room.  "I have evil omens
+in my soul, and evil prophecies in my books," said he, mournfully.  "But
+the worst is here," he added, putting his finger significantly to his
+temples; "the string is stretched--one more blow would snap it."
+
+As he thus said, he opened the door and vanished through that labyrinth
+of galleries by which he was enabled at all times to reach unobserved
+either the palace of the Alhambra or the gardens without the gates of the
+city.
+
+Ximen remained behind a few moments in deep thought.  "All mine if he
+dies!" said he: "all mine if he does not return!  All mine, all mine!
+and I have not a child nor a kinsman in the world to clutch it away from
+me!"  With that he locked the vault, and returned to the upper air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE FUGITIVE AND THE MEETING
+
+In their different directions the rival kings were equally successful.
+Salobrena, but lately conquered by the Christians, was thrown into a
+commotion by the first glimpse of Boabdil's banners; the populace rose,
+beat back their Christian guards, and opened the gates to the last of
+their race of kings.  The garrison alone, to which the Spaniards
+retreated, resisted Boabdil's arms; and, defended by, impregnable walls,
+promised an obstinate and bloody siege.
+
+Meanwhile, Ferdinand had no sooner entered Cordova than his extensive
+scheme of confiscation and holy persecution commenced.  Not only did more
+than five hundred Jews perish in the dark and secret gripe of the Grand
+Inquisitor, but several hundred of the wealthiest Christian families, in
+whose blood was detected the hereditary Jewish taint, were thrown into
+prison; and such as were most fortunate purchased life by the sacrifice
+of half their treasures.  At this time, however, there suddenly broke
+forth a formidable insurrection amongst these miserable subjects--the
+Messenians of the Iberian Sparta.  The Jews were so far aroused from
+their long debasement by omnipotent despair, that a single spark, falling
+on the ashes of their ancient spirit, rekindled the flame of the
+descendants of the fierce warriors of Palestine.  They were encouraged
+and assisted by the suspected Christians, who had been involved in the
+same persecution; and the whole were headed by a man who appeared
+suddenly amongst them, and whose fiery eloquence and martial spirit
+produced, at such a season, the most fervent enthusiasm.  Unhappily, the
+whole details of this singular outbreak are withheld from us; only by
+wary hints and guarded allusions do the Spanish chroniclers apprise us
+of its existence and its perils.  It is clear that all narrative of an
+event that might afford the most dangerous precedent, and was alarming to
+the pride and avarice of the Spanish king, as well as the pious zeal of
+the Church, was strictly forbidden; and the conspiracy was hushed in the
+dread silence of the Inquisition, into whose hands the principal
+conspirators ultimately fell.  We learn, only, that a determined and
+sanguinary struggle was followed by the triumph of Ferdinand, and the
+complete extinction of the treason.
+
+It was one evening, that a solitary fugitive, hard chased by an armed
+troop of the brothers of St. Hermandad, was seen emerging from a wild and
+rocky defile, which opened abruptly on the gardens of a small, and, by
+the absence of fortification and sentries, seemingly deserted, castle.
+Behind him; in the exceeding stillness which characterises the air of a
+Spanish twilight, he heard, at a considerable distance the blast of the
+horn and the tramp of hoofs.  His pursuers, divided into several
+detachments, were scouring the country after him, as the fishermen draw
+their nets, from bank to bank, conscious that the prey they drive before
+the meshes cannot escape them at the last.  The fugitive halted in doubt,
+and gazed round him: he was well-nigh exhausted; his eyes were bloodshot;
+the large drops rolled fast down his brow; his whole frame quivered and
+palpitated, like that of a stag when he stands at bay.  Beyond the castle
+spread a broad plain, far as the eye could reach, without shrub or hollow
+to conceal his form: flight across a space so favourable to his pursuers
+was evidently in vain.  No alternative was left unless he turned back on
+the very path taken by the horsemen, or trusted to such scanty and
+perilous shelter as the copses in the castle garden might afford him.  He
+decided on the latter refuge, cleared the low and lonely wall that girded
+the demesne, and plunged into a thicket of overhanging oaks and
+chestnuts.
+
+At that hour, and in that garden, by the side of a little fountain, were
+seated two females: the one of mature and somewhat advanced years; the
+other, in the flower of virgin youth.  But the flower was prematurely
+faded; and neither the bloom, nor sparkle, nor undulating play of
+feature, that should have suited her age, was visible in the marble
+paleness and contemplative sadness of her beautiful countenance.
+
+"Alas! my young friend," said the elder of these ladies, "it is in these
+hours of solitude and calm that we are most deeply impressed with the
+nothingness of life.  Thou, my sweet convert, art now the object, no
+longer of my compassion, but my envy; and earnestly do I feel convinced
+of the blessed repose thy spirit will enjoy in the lap of the Mother
+Church.  Happy are they who die young! but thrice happy they who die in
+the spirit rather than the flesh: dead to sin, but not to virtue; to
+terror, not to hope; to man, but not to God!"
+
+"Dear senora," replied the young maiden, mournfully, "were I alone on
+earth, Heaven is my witness with what deep and thankful resignation I
+should take the holy vows, and forswear the past; but the heart remains
+human, however divine the hope that it may cherish.  And sometimes I
+start, and think of home, of childhood, of my strange but beloved father,
+deserted and childless in his old age."
+
+"Thine, Leila," returned the elder Senora, "are but the sorrows our
+nature is doomed to.  What matter, whether absence or death sever the
+affections?  Thou lamentest a father; I, a son, dead in the pride of his
+youth and beauty--a husband, languishing in the fetters of the Moor.
+Take comfort for thy sorrows, in the reflection that sorrow is the
+heritage of all."
+
+Ere Leila could reply, the orange-boughs that sheltered the spot where
+they sat were put aside, and between the women and the fountain stood the
+dark form of Almamen the Israelite.  Leila rose, shrieked, and flung
+herself, unconscious, on his breast.
+
+"O Lord of Israel!" cried Almamen, in atone of deep anguish.  "I, then,
+at last regain my child?  Do I press her to my heart? and is it only for
+that brief moment, when I stand upon the brink of death?  Leila, my
+child, look up! smile upon thy father; let him feel, on his maddening and
+burning brow, the sweet breath of the last of his race, and bear with
+him, at least, one holy and gentle thought to the dark grave."
+
+"My father! is it indeed my father?" said Leila, recovering herself, and
+drawing back, that she might assure herself of that familiar face; "it is
+thou!  it is--it is!  Oh! what blessed chance brings us together?"
+
+"That chance is the destiny that hurries me to my tomb," answered
+Almamen, solemnly.  "Hark! hear you not the sound of their rushing
+steeds--their impatient voices?  They are on me now!"
+
+"Who?  Of whom speakest thou?"
+
+"My pursuers--the horsemen of the Spaniard."
+
+"Oh, senora, save him!" cried Leila, turning to Donna Inez, whom both
+father and child had hitherto forgotten, and who now stood gazing upon
+Almamen with wondering and anxious eyes.  "Whither can he fly?  The
+vaults of the castle may conceal him.  This way-hasten!"
+
+"Stay," said Inez, trembling, and approaching close to Almamen: "do I see
+aright? and, amidst the dark change of years and trial, do I recognise
+that stately form, which once contrasted to the sad eye of a mother the
+drooping and faded form of her only son?  Art thou not he who saved my
+boy from the pestilence, who accompanied him to the shores of Naples, and
+consigned him to these arms?  Look on me! dost thou not recall the mother
+of thy friend?"
+
+"I recall thy features dimly and as in a dream," answered the Hebrew;
+"and while thou speakest, there rush upon me the memories of an earlier
+time, in lands where Leila first looked upon the day, and her mother sang
+to me at sunset by the stream of the Euphrates, and on the sites of
+departed empires.  Thy son--I remember now: I had friendship then with a
+Christian--for I was still young."
+
+"Waste not the time--father--senora!" cried Leila, impatiently clinging
+still to her father's breast.
+
+"You are right; nor shall your sire, in whom I thus wonderfully recognise
+my son's friend, perish if I can save him."
+
+Inez then conducted her strange guest to a small door in the rear of the
+castle; and after leading him through some of the principal apartments,
+left him in one of the tiring-rooms adjoining her own chamber, and the
+entrance to which the arras concealed.  She rightly judged this a safer
+retreat than the vaults of the castle might afford, since her great name
+and known intimacy with Isabel would preclude all suspicion of her
+abetting in the escape of the fugitive, and keep those places the most
+secure in which, without such aid, he could not have secreted himself.
+
+In a few minutes, several of the troop arrived at the castle, and on
+learning the name of its owner contented themselves with searching the
+gardens, and the lower and more exposed apartments; and then recommending
+to the servants a vigilant look-out remounted, and proceeded to scour the
+plain, over which now slowly fell the starlight and shade of night.  When
+Leila stole, at last, to the room in which Almamen was hid, she found
+him, stretched on his mantle, in a deep sleep.  Exhausted by all he had
+undergone, and his rigid nerves, as it were, relaxed by the sudden
+softness of that interview with his child, the slumber of that fiery
+wanderer was as calm as an infant's.  And their relation almost seemed
+reversed; and the daughter to be as a mother watching over her offspring,
+when Leila seated herself softly by him, fixing her eyes--to which the
+tears came ever, ever to be brushed away-upon his worn but tranquil
+features, made yet more serene by the quiet light that glimmered through
+the casement.  And so passed the hours of that night; and the father and
+the child--the meek convert, the revengeful fanatic--were under the same
+roof.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ALMAMEN HEARS AND SEES, BUT REFUSES TO BELIEVE; FOR THE BRAIN,
+OVERWROUGHT, GROWS DULL, EVEN IN THE KEENEST.
+
+The dawn broke slowly upon the chamber, and Almamen still slept.  It was
+the Sabbath of the Christians--that day on which the Saviour rose from
+the dead--thence named so emphatically and sublimely by the early Church
+THE LORD'S DAY.
+
+     [Before the Christian era, the Sunday was, however, called the
+     Lord's day--i.e., the day of the Lord the Sun.]
+
+And as the ray of the sun flashed in the east it fell like a glory, over
+a crucifix, placed in the deep recess of the Gothic casement; and brought
+startlingly before the eyes of Leila that face upon which the rudest of
+the Catholic sculptors rarely fail to preserve the mystic and awful union
+of the expiring anguish of the man with the lofty patience of the God.
+It looked upon her, that face; it invited, it encouraged, while it
+thrilled and subdued.  She stole gently from the side of her father; she
+crept to the spot, and flung herself on her knees beside the consecrated
+image.
+
+"Support me, O Redeemer!" she murmured--"support thy creature!
+strengthen her steps in the blessed path, though it divide her
+irrevocably from all that on earth she loves: and if there be a sacrifice
+in her solemn choice, accept, O Thou, the Crucified! accept it, in part
+atonement of the crime of her stubborn race; and, hereafter, let the lips
+of a maiden of Judaea implore thee, not in vain, for some mitigation of
+the awful curse that hath fallen justly upon her tribe."
+
+As broken by low sobs, and in a choked and muttered voice, Leila poured
+forth her prayer, she was startled by a deep groan; and turning, in alarm
+she saw that Almamen had awaked, and, leaning on his arm, was now bending
+upon her his dark eyes, once more gleaming with all their wonted fire.
+
+"Speak," he said, as she coweringly hid her face, "speak to me, or I
+shall be turned to stone by one horrid thought.  It is not before that
+symbol that thou kneelest in adoration; and my sense wanders, if it tell
+me that thy broken words expressed the worship of an apostate?  In mercy,
+speak!"
+
+"Father!" began Leila; but her lips refused to utter more than that
+touching and holy word.
+
+Almamen rose; and plucking the hands from her face, gazed on her some
+moments, as if he would penetrate her very soul; and Leila, recovering
+her courage in the pause, by degrees met his eyes unquailing--her pure
+and ingenuous brow raised to his, and sadness, but not guilt, speaking
+from every line of that lovely face.
+
+"Thou dost not tremble," said Almamen, at length, breaking the silence,
+"and I have erred.  Thou art not the criminal I deemed thee.  Come to my
+arms!"
+
+"Alas!" said Leila, obeying the instinct, and casting herself upon that
+rugged bosom.  "I will dare, at least, not to disavow my God.  Father!
+by that dread anathema which is on our race, which has made us homeless
+and powerless--outcasts and strangers in the land; by the persecution and
+anguish we have known, teach thy lordly heart that we are rightly
+punished for the persecution and the anguish we doomed to Him, whose
+footstep hallowed our native earth!  FIRST, IN THE HISTORY of THE WORLD,
+DID THE STERN HEBREWS INFLICT UPON MANKIND THE AWFUL CRIME OF PERSECUTION
+FOR OPINIONS SAKE.  The seed we sowed hath brought forth the Dead Sea
+fruit upon which we feed.  I asked for resignation and for hope: I looked
+upon yonder cross, and I found both.  Harden not thy heart; listen to thy
+child; wise though thou be, and weak though her woman spirit, listen to
+me."
+
+"Be dumb!" cried Almamen, in such a voice as might have come from the
+charnel, so ghostly and deathly sounded its hollow tone; then, recoiling
+some steps, he placed both his hands upon his temples, and muttered,
+"Mad, mad! yes, yes, this is but a delirium, and I am tempted with a
+devil!  Oh, my child!" he resumed, in a voice that became, on the sudden,
+inexpressibly tender and imploring, "I have been sorely tried; and I
+dreamt a feverish dream of passion and revenge.  Be thine the lips, and
+thine the soothing hand, that shall wake me from it.  Let us fly for ever
+from these hated lands; let us leave to these miserable infidels their
+bloody contest, careless which shall fall.  To a soil on which the iron
+heel does not clang, to an air where man's orisons rise, in solitude, to
+the Great Jehovah, let us hasten our weary steps.  Come! while the castle
+yet sleeps, let us forth unseen--the father and the child.  We will hold
+sweet commune by the way.  And hark ye, Leila," he added, in a low and
+abrupt whisper, "talk not to me of yonder symbol; for thy God is a
+jealous God, and hath no likeness in the graven image."
+
+Had he been less exhausted by long travail and racking thoughts, far
+different, perhaps, would have been the language of a man so stern.  But
+circumstance impresses the hardest substance; and despite his native
+intellect and affected superiority over others, no one, perhaps, was more
+human, in his fitful moods,--his weakness and his strength, his passion
+and his purpose,--than that strange man, who had dared, in his dark
+studies and arrogant self-will, to aspire beyond humanity.
+
+That was, indeed, a perilous moment for the young convert.  The
+unexpected softness of her father utterly subdued her; nor was she
+sufficiently possessed of that all-denying zeal of the Catholic
+enthusiast to which every human tie and earthly duty has been often
+sacrificed on the shrine of a rapt and metaphysical piety.  Whatever her
+opinions, her new creed, her secret desire of the cloister, fed as it was
+by the sublime, though fallacious notion, that in her conversion, her
+sacrifice, the crimes of her race might be expiated in the eyes of Him
+whose death had been the great atonement of a world; whatever such higher
+thoughts and sentiments, they gave way, at that moment, to the
+irresistible impulse of household nature and of filial duty.  Should she
+desert her father, and could that desertion be a virtue?  Her heart put
+and answered both questions in a breath.  She approached Almamen, placed
+her hand in his, and said, steadily and calmly, "Father, wheresoever thou
+goest, I will wend with thee."
+
+But Heaven ordained to each another destiny than might have been theirs,
+had the dictates of that impulse been fulfilled.
+
+Ere Almamen could reply, a trumpet sounded clear and loud at the gate.
+
+"Hark!" he said, griping his dagger, and starting back to a sense of the
+dangers round him.  "They come--my pursuers and my murtherers!--but these
+limbs are sacred from--the rack."
+
+Even that sound of ominous danger was almost a relief to Leila: "I will
+go," she said, "and learn what the blast betokens; remain here--be
+cautious--I will return."
+
+Several minutes, however, elapsed before Leila reappeared; she was
+accompanied by Donna Inez, whose paleness and agitation betokened her
+alarm.  A courier had arrived at the gate to announce the approach of the
+queen, who, with a considerable force, was on her way to join Ferdinand,
+then, in the usual rapidity of his movements, before one of the Moorish
+towns that had revolted from his allegiance.  It was impossible for
+Almamen to remain in safety in the castle; and the only hope of escape
+was departing immediately and in disguise.
+
+"I have," she said, "a trusty and faithful servant with me in the castle,
+to whom I can, without anxiety, confide the charge of your safety; and
+even if suspected by the way, my name, and the companionship of my
+servant, will remove all obstacles; it is not a long journey hence to
+Guadix, which has already revolted to the Moors: there, till the armies
+of Ferdinand surround the walls, your refuge may be secure."
+
+Almamen remained for some moments plunged in a gloomy silence.  But, at
+length, he signified his assent to the plan proposed, and Donna Inez
+hastened to give the directions of his intended guide.
+
+"Leila," said the Hebrew, when left alone with his daughter, "think not
+that it is for mine own safety that I stoop to this flight from thee.
+No! but never till thou wert lost to me, by mine own rash confidence in
+another, did I know how dear to my heart was the last scion of my race,
+the sole memorial left to me of thy mother's love.  Regaining thee once
+more, a new and a soft existence opens upon my eyes; and the earth seems
+to change, as by a sudden revolution, from winter into spring.  For thy
+sake, I consent to use all the means that man's intellect can devise for
+preservation from my foes.  Meanwhile, here will rest my soul; to this
+spot, within one week from this period--no matter through what danger I
+pass--I shall return: then I shall claim thy promise.  I will arrange all
+things for our flight, and no stone shall harm thy footstep by the way.
+The Lord of Israel be with thee, my daughter, and strengthen thy heart!
+But," he added, tearing himself from her embrace, as he heard steps
+ascending to the chamber, "deem not that, in this most fond and fatherly
+affection, I forget what is due to me and thee.  Think not that my love
+is only the brute and insensate feeling of the progenitor to the
+offspring: I love thee for thy mother's sake--I love thee for thine own--
+I love thee yet more for the sake of Israel.  If thou perish, if thou art
+lost to us, thou, the last daughter of the house of Issachar, then the
+haughtiest family of God's great people is extinct."
+
+Here Inez appeared at the door, but withdrew, at the impatient and lordly
+gesture of Almamen, who, without further heed of the interruption,
+resumed:
+
+"I look to thee, and thy seed, for the regeneration which I once trusted,
+fool that I was, mine own day might see effected.  Let this pass.  Thou
+art under the roof of the Nazarene.  I will not believe that the arts we
+have resisted against fire and sword can prevail with thee.  But, if I
+err, awful will be the penalty!  Could I once know that thou hadst
+forsaken thy ancestral creed, though warrior and priest stood by thee,
+though thousands and ten thousands were by thy right hand, this steel
+should save the race of Issachar from dishonour.  Beware!  Thou weepest;
+but, child, I warn, not threaten.  God be with thee!"
+
+He wrung the cold hand of his child, turned to the door, and, after such
+disguise as the brief time allowed him could afford, quitted the castle
+with his Spanish guide, who, accustomed to the benevolence of his
+mistress, obeyed her injunction without wonder, though not without
+suspicion.
+
+The third part of an hour had scarcely elapsed, and the sun was yet on
+the mountain-tops, when Isabel arrived.  She came to announce that the
+outbreaks of the Moorish towns in the vicinity rendered the half-
+fortified castle of her friend no longer a secure abode; and she honoured
+the Spanish lady with a command to accompany her, with her female suite,
+to the camp of Ferdinand.
+
+Leila received the intelligence with a kind of stupor.  Her interview
+with her father, the strong and fearful contests of emotion which that
+interview occasioned, left her senses faint and dizzy; and when she found
+herself, by the twilight star, once more with the train of Isabel, the
+only feeling that stirred actively through her stunned and bewildered
+mind, was, that the hand of Providence conducted her from a temptation
+that, the Reader of all hearts knew, the daughter and woman would have
+been too feeble to resist.
+
+On the fifth day from his departure, Almamen returned to find the castle
+deserted, and his daughter gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+IN THE FERMENT OF GREAT EVENTS THE DREGS RISE.
+
+The Israelites did not limit their struggles to the dark conspiracy to
+which allusion has been made.  In some of the Moorish towns that revolted
+from Ferdinand, they renounced the neutrality they had hitherto
+maintained between Christian and Moslem.  Whether it was that they were
+inflamed by the fearful and wholesale barbarities enforced by Ferdinand
+and the Inquisition against their tribe, or whether they were stirred up
+by one of their own order, in whom was recognised the head of their most
+sacred family; or whether, as is most probable, both causes combined--
+certain it is, that they manifested a feeling that was thoroughly unknown
+to the ordinary habits and policy of that peaceable people.  They bore
+great treasure to the public stock--they demanded arms, and, under their
+own leaders, were admitted, though with much jealousy and precaution,
+into the troops of the arrogant and disdainful Moslems.
+
+In this conjunction of hostile planets, Ferdinand had recourse to his
+favourite policy of wile and stratagem.  Turning against the Jews the
+very treaty Almamen had once sought to obtain in their favour, he caused
+it to be circulated, privately, that the Jews, anxious to purchase their
+peace with him, had promised to betray the Moorish towns, and Granada
+itself into his hands.  The paper, which Ferdinand himself had signed in
+his interview with Almamen, and of which, on the capture of the Hebrew,
+he had taken care to repossess himself, he gave to a spy whom he sent,
+disguised as a Jew, into one of the revolted cities.
+
+Private intelligence reached the Moorish ringleader of the arrival of
+this envoy.  He was seized, and the document found on his person.  The
+form of the words drawn up by Almamen (who had carefully omitted mention
+of his own name--whether that which he assumed, or that which, by birth,
+he should have borne) merely conveyed the compact, that if by a Jew,
+within two weeks from the date therein specified, Granada was delivered
+to the Christian king, the Jews should enjoy certain immunities and
+rights.
+
+The discovery of this document filled the Moors of the city to which the
+spy had been sent with a fury that no words can describe.  Always
+distrusting their allies, they now imagined they perceived the sole
+reason of their sudden enthusiasm, of their demand for arms.  The mob
+rose: the principal Jews were seized and massacred without trial; some by
+the wrath of the multitude, some by the slower tortures of the
+magistrate.  Messengers were sent to the different revolted towns, and,
+above all, to Granada itself, to put the Moslems on their guard against
+these unhappy enemies of either party.  At once covetous and ferocious,
+the Moors rivalled the Inquisition in their cruelty, and Ferdinand in
+their extortion.
+
+It was the dark fate of Almamen, as of most premature and heated
+liberators of the enslaved, to double the terrors and the evils he had
+sought to cure.  The warning arrived at Granada at a time in which the
+vizier, Jusef, had received the commands of his royal master, still at
+the siege of Salobrena, to use every exertion to fill the wasting
+treasuries.  Fearful of new exactions against the Moors, the vizier
+hailed, as a message from Heaven, so just a pretext for a new and
+sweeping impost on the Jews.  The spendthrift violence of the mob was
+restrained, because it was headed by the authorities, who were wisely
+anxious that the state should have no rival in the plunder it required;
+and the work of confiscation and robbery was carried on with a majestic
+and calm regularity, which redounded no less to the credit of Jusef than
+it contributed to the coffers of the king.
+
+It was late, one evening, when Ximen was making his usual round through
+the chambers of Almamen's house.  As he glanced around at the various
+articles of wealth and luxury, he ever and anon burst into a low, fitful
+chuckle, rubbed his lean hands, and mumbled out, "If my master should
+die! if my master should die!"
+
+While thus engaged, he heard a confused and distant shout; and, listening
+attentively, he distinguished a cry, grown of late sufficiently familiar,
+of, "Live, Jusef the just--perish, the traitor Jews!"
+
+"Ah!" said Ximen, as the whole character of his face changed; "some new
+robbery upon our race!  And this is thy work, son of Issachar!  Madman
+that thou wert, to be wiser than thy sires, and seek to dupe the
+idolaters in the council chamber and the camp--their field, their vantage
+ground; as the bazaar and the market-place are ours.  None suspect that
+the potent santon is the traitor Jew; but I know it!  I could give thee
+to the bow-string--and, if thou Overt dead, all thy goods and gold, even
+to the mule at the manger, would be old Ximen's."
+
+He paused at that thought, shut his eyes, and smiled at the prospect his
+fancy conjured up and completing his survey, retired to his own chamber,
+which opened, by a small door, upon one of the back courts.  He had
+scarcely reached the room, when he heard a low tap at the outer door;
+and, when it was thrice repeated, he knew that it was one of his Jewish-
+brethren.  For Ximen--as years, isolation, and avarice gnawed away
+whatever of virtue once put forth some meagre fruit from a heart
+naturally bare and rocky--still reserved one human feeling towards his
+countrymen.  It was the bond which unites all the persecuted: and Ximen
+loved them, because he could not envy their happiness.  The power--the
+knowledge--the lofty, though wild designs of his master, stung and
+humbled him--he secretly hated, because he could not compassionate or
+contemn him.  But the bowed frame, and slavish voice, and timid nerves of
+his crushed brotherhood presented to the old man the likeness of things
+that could not exult over him.  Debased and aged, and solitary as he was,
+he felt a kind of wintry warmth in the thought that even he had the power
+to protect!
+
+He thus maintained an intercourse with his fellow Israelites; and often,
+in their dangers, had afforded them a refuge in the numerous vaults and
+passages, the ruins of which may still be descried beneath the mouldering
+foundations of that mysterious mansion.  And, as the house was generally
+supposed the property of an absent emir, and had been especially
+recommended to the care of the cadis by Boabdil, who alone of the Moors
+knew it as one of the dwelling-places of the santon, whose ostensible
+residence was in apartments allotted to him within the palace,--it was,
+perhaps, the sole place within Granada which afforded an unsuspected and
+secure refuge to the hunted Israelites.
+
+When Ximen recognised the wonted signal of his brethren, he crawled to
+the door; and, after the precaution of a Hebrew watchword, replied to in
+the same tongue, he gave admittance to the tall and stooping frame of the
+rich Elias.
+
+"Worthy and excellent master!" said Ximen, after again securing the
+entrance; "what can bring the honoured and wealthy Elias to the chamber
+of the poor hireling?"
+
+"My friend," answered the Jew; "call me not wealthy, nor honoured.  For
+years I have dwelt within the city; safe and respected, even by the
+Moslemin; verily and because I have purchased with jewel and treasure the
+protection of the king and the great men.  But now, alas! in the sudden
+wrath of the heathen--ever imagining vain things--I have been summoned
+into the presence of their chief rabbi, and only escaped the torture by a
+sum that ten years of labour and the sweat of my brow cannot replace.
+Ximen! the bitterest thought of all is, that the frenzy of one of our own
+tribe has brought this desolation upon Israel."
+
+"My lord speaks riddles," said Ximen, with well-feigned astonishment in
+his glassy eyes.
+
+"Why dost thou wind and turn, good Ximen?" said the Jew, shaking his
+head; "thou knowest well what my words drive at.  Thy master is the
+pretended Almamen; and that recreant Israelite (if Israelite, indeed,
+still be one who hath forsaken the customs and the forms of his
+forefathers) is he who hath stirred up the Jews of Cordova and Guadix,
+and whose folly hath brought upon us these dread things.  Holy Abraham!
+this Jew hath cost me more than fifty Nazarenes and a hundred Moors."
+
+Ximen remained silent; and, the tongue of Elias being loosed by the
+recollection of his sad loss, the latter continued: "At the first, when
+the son of Issachar reappeared, and became a counsellor in the king's
+court, I indeed, who had led him, then a child, to the synagogue--for old
+Issachar was to me dear as a brother--recognised him by his eyes and
+voice: but I exulted in his craft and concealment; I believed he would
+work mighty things for his poor brethren, and would obtain, for his
+father's friend, the supplying of the king's wives and concubines with
+raiment and cloth of price.  But years have passed: he hath not lightened
+our burthens; and, by the madness that hath of late come over him,
+heading the heathen armies, and drawing our brethren into danger and
+death, he hath deserved the curse of the synagogue, and the wrath of our
+whole race.  I find, from our brethren who escaped the Inquisition by the
+surrender of their substance, that his unskilful and frantic schemes were
+the main pretext for the sufferings of the righteous under the Nazarene;
+and, again, the same schemes bring on us the same oppression from the
+Moor.  Accursed be he, and may his name perish!"
+
+Ximen sighed, but remained silent, conjecturing to what end the Jew would
+bring his invectives.  He was not long in suspense.  After a pause, Elias
+recommenced, in an altered and more careless tone, "He is rich, this son
+of Issachar--wondrous rich."
+
+"He has treasures scattered over half the cities of Africa and the
+Orient," said Ximen.
+
+"Thou seest, then, my friend, that thy master hath doomed me to a heavy
+loss.  I possess his secret; I could give him up to the king's wrath; I
+could bring him to the death.  But I am just and meek: let him pay my
+forfeiture, and I will forego mine anger."
+
+"Thou dost not know him," said Ximen, alarmed at the thought of a
+repayment, which might grievously diminish his own heritage--of Almamen's
+effects in Granada.
+
+"But if I threaten him with exposure?"
+
+"Thou wouldst feed the fishes of the Darro," interrupted Ximen.  "Nay,
+even now, if Almamen learn that thou knowest his birth and race, tremble!
+for thy days in the land will be numbered."
+
+"Verily," exclaimed the Jew, in great alarm, "then have I fallen into the
+snare; for these lips revealed to him that knowledge."
+
+"Then is the righteous Elias a lost man, within ten days from that in
+which Almamen returns to Granada.  I know my master: and blood is to him
+as water."
+
+"Let the wicked be consumed!" cried Elias, furiously stamping his foot,
+while fire flashed from his dark eyes, for the instinct of self-
+preservation made him fierce.  "Not from me, however," he added, more
+calmly, "will come his danger.  Know that there be more than a hundred
+Jews in this city, who have sworn his death; Jews who, flying hither from
+Cordova, have seen their parents murdered and their substance seized, and
+who behold, in the son of Issachar, the cause of the murder and the
+spoil.  They have detected the impostor, and a hundred knives are
+whetting even now for his blood: let him look to it.  Ximen, I have
+spoken to thee as the foolish speak; thou mayest betray me to thy lord;
+but from what I have learned of thee from our brethren, I have poured my
+heart into thy bosom without fear.  Wilt thou betray Israel, or assist us
+to smite the traitor?"
+
+Ximen mused for a moment, and his meditation conjured up the treasures of
+his master.  He stretched forth his right hand to Elias; and when the
+Israelites parted, they were friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+BOADBIL'S RETURN.--THE REAPPEARANCE OF GRANADA.
+
+The third morning from this interview, a rumour reached Granada that
+Boabdil had been repulsed in his assault on the citadel of Salobrena with
+a severe loss; that Hernando del Pulgar had succeeded in conducting to
+its relief a considerable force; and that the army of Ferdinand was on
+its march against the Moorish king.  In the midst of the excitement
+occasioned by these reports, a courier arrived to confirm their truth,
+and to announce the return of Boabdil.
+
+At nightfall, the king, preceding his army, entered the city, and
+hastened to bury himself in the Alhambra.  As he passed dejectedly into
+the women's apartments, his stern mother met him.
+
+"My son," she said, bitterly, "dost thou return and not a conqueror?"
+
+Before Boabdil could reply, a light and rapid step sped through the
+glittering arcades; and weeping with joy, and breaking all the Oriental
+restraints, Amine fell upon his bosom.  "My beloved! my king! light of
+mine eyes! thou hast returned.  Welcome--for thou art safe."
+
+The different form of these several salutations struck Boabdil forcibly.
+"Thou seest, my mother," said he, "how great the contrast between those
+who love us from affection, and those who love us from pride.  In
+adversity, God keep me, O my mother, from thy tongue!"
+
+"But I love thee from pride, too," murmured Amine; "and for that reason
+is thine adversity dear to me, for it takes thee from the world to make
+thee more mine own and I am proud of the afflictions that my hero shares
+with his slave."
+
+"Lights there, and the banquet!" cried the king, turning from his haughty
+mother; "we will feast and be merry while we may.  My adored Amine, kiss
+me!"
+
+Proud, melancholy, and sensitive as he was in that hour of reverse,
+Boabdil felt no grief: such balm has Love for our sorrows, when its wings
+are borrowed from the dove!  And although the laws of the Eastern life
+confined to the narrow walls of a harem the sphere of Amine's gentle
+influence; although, even in romance, THE NATURAL compels us to portray
+her vivid and rich colours only in a faint and hasty sketch, yet still
+are left to the outline the loveliest and the noblest features of the
+sex--the spirit to arouse us to exertion, the softness to console us in
+our fall!
+
+While Boabdil and the body of the army remained in the city, Muza, with a
+chosen detachment of the horse, scoured the country to visit the newly-
+acquired cities, and sustain their courage.
+
+From this charge he was recalled by the army of Ferdinand, which once
+more poured down into the Vega, completely devastated its harvests, and
+then swept back to consummate the conquests of the revolted towns.  To
+this irruption succeeded an interval of peace--the calm before the storm.
+From every part of Spain, the most chivalric and resolute of the Moors,
+taking advantage of the pause in the contest, flocked to Granada; and
+that city became the focus of all that paganism in Europe possessed of
+brave and determined spirits.
+
+At length, Ferdinand, completing his conquests, and having refilled his
+treasury, mustered the whole force of his dominions--forty thousand foot,
+and ten thousand horse; and once more, and for the last time, appeared
+before the walls of Granada.  A solemn and prophetic determination filled
+both besiegers and besieged: each felt that the crowning crisis was at
+hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE CONFLAGRATION.--THE MAJESTY OF AN INDIVIDUAL PASSION IN THE MIDST OF
+HOSTILE THOUSANDS.
+
+It was the eve of a great and general assault upon Granada, deliberately
+planned by the chiefs of the Christian army.  The Spanish camp (the most
+gorgeous Christendom had ever known) gradually grew calm and hushed.  The
+shades deepened--the stars burned forth more serene and clear.  Bright,
+in that azure air, streamed the silken tents of the court, blazoned with
+heraldic devices, and crowned by gaudy banners, which, filled by a brisk
+and murmuring wind from the mountains, flaunted gaily on their gilded
+staves.  In the centre of the camp rose the pavilion of the queen--a
+palace in itself.  Lances made its columns; brocade and painted arras its
+walls; and the space covered by its numerous compartments would have
+contained the halls and outworks of an ordinary castle.  The pomp of that
+camp realised the wildest dreams of Gothic, coupled with Oriental
+splendour; something worthy of a Tasso to have imagined, or a Beckford to
+create.  Nor was the exceeding costliness of the more courtly tents
+lessened in effect by those of the soldiery in the outskirts, many of
+which were built from boughs, still retaining their leaves--savage and
+picturesque huts;--as if, realising old legends, wild men of the woods
+had taken up the cross, and followed the Christian warriors against the
+swarthy followers of Termagaunt and Mahound.  There, then, extended that
+mighty camp in profound repose, as the midnight threw deeper and longer
+shadows over the sward from the tented avenues and canvas streets.  It
+was at that hour that Isabel, in the most private recess of her pavilion,
+was employed in prayer for the safety of the king, and the issue of the
+Sacred War.  Kneeling before the altar of that warlike oratory, her
+spirit became rapt and absorbed from earth in the intensity of her
+devotions; and in the whole camp (save the sentries), the eyes of that
+pious queen were, perhaps, the only ones unclosed.  All was profoundly
+still; her guards, her attendants, were gone to rest; and the, tread of
+the sentinel, without that immense pavilion, was not heard through the
+silken walls.
+
+It was then that Isabel suddenly felt a strong grasp upon her shoulder,
+as she still knelt by the altar.  A faint shriek burst from her lips; she
+turned, and the broad curved knife of an eastern warrior gleamed close
+before her eyes.
+
+"Hush! utter a cry, breathe more loudly than thy wont, and, queen though
+thou art, in the centre of swarming thousands, thou diest!"
+
+Such were the words that reached the ear of the royal Castilian,
+whispered by a man of stern and commanding, though haggard aspect.
+
+"What is thy purpose? wouldst thou murder me?" said the queen, trembling,
+perhaps for the first time, before a mortal presence.
+
+"Thy life is safe, if thou strivest not to delude or to deceive me.  Our
+time is short--answer me.  I am Almamen, the Hebrew.  Where is the
+hostage rendered to thy hands?  I claim my child.  She is with thee--I
+know it.  In what corner of thy camp?"
+
+"Rude stranger!" said Isabel, recovering somewhat from her alarm,--"thy
+daughter is removed, I trust for ever, from thine impious reach.  She is
+not within the camp."
+
+"Lie not, Queen of Castile," said Almamen, raising his knife; "for days
+and weeks I have tracked thy steps, followed thy march, haunted even thy
+slumbers, though men of mail stood as guards around them; and I know that
+my daughter has been with thee.  Think not I brave this danger without
+resolves the most fierce and dread.  Answer me, where is my child?"
+
+"Many days since," said Isabel, awed, despite herself, by her strange
+position,--"thy daughter left the camp for the house of God.  It was her
+own desire.  The Saviour hath received her into His fold."
+
+Had a thousand lances pierced his heart, the vigour and energy of life
+could scarce more suddenly have deserted Almamen.  The rigid muscles of
+his countenance relaxed at once, from resolve and menace, into
+unutterable horror, anguish, and despair.  He recoiled several steps; his
+knees trembled violently; he seemed stunned by a death-blow.  Isabel, the
+boldest and haughtiest of her sex, seized that moment of reprieve; she
+sprang forward, darted through the draperies into the apartments occupied
+by her train, and, in a moment, the pavilion resounded with her cries for
+aid.  The sentinels were aroused; retainers sprang from their pillows;
+they heard the cause of the alarm; they made to the spot; when, ere they
+reached its partition of silk, a vivid and startling blaze burst forth
+upon them.  The tent was on fire.  The materials fed the flame like
+magic.  Some of the guards had yet the courage to dash forward; but the
+smoke and the glare drove them back, blinded and dizzy.  Isabel herself
+had scarcely time for escape, so rapid was the conflagration.  Alarmed
+for her husband, she rushed to his tent--to find him already awakened by
+the noise, and issuing from its entrance, his drawn sword in his hand.
+The wind, which had a few minutes before but curled the triumphant
+banners, now circulated the destroying flame.  It spread from tent to
+tent, almost as a flash of lightning that shoots along neighbouring
+clouds.  The camp was in one continued blaze, ere a man could dream of
+checking the conflagration.
+
+Not waiting to hear the confused tale of his royal consort, Ferdinand,
+exclaiming, "The Moors have done this--they will be on us!" ordered the
+drums to beat and the trumpets to sound, and hastened in person, wrapped
+merely in his long mantle, to alarm his chiefs.  While that well-
+disciplined and veteran army, fearing every moment the rally of the foe,
+endeavoured rapidly to form themselves into some kind of order, the flame
+continued to spread till the whole heavens were illumined.  By its light,
+cuirass and helmet glowed, as in the furnace, and the armed men seemed
+rather like life-like and lurid meteors than human forms.  The city of
+Granada was brought near to them by the intensity of the glow; and, as a
+detachment of cavalry spurred from the camp to meet the anticipated
+surprise of the Paynims, they saw, upon the walls and roofs of Granada,
+the Moslems clustering and their spears gleaming.  But, equally amazed
+with the Christians, and equally suspicious of craft and design, the
+Moors did not issue from their gates.  Meanwhile the conflagration, as
+rapid to die as to begin, grew fitful and feeble; and the night seemed to
+fall with a melancholy darkness over the ruin of that silken city.
+
+Ferdinand summoned his council.  He had now perceived it was no ambush of
+the Moors.  The account of Isabel, which, at last, he comprehended; the
+strange and almost miraculous manner in which Almamen had baffled his
+guards, and penetrated to the royal tent; might have aroused his Gothic
+superstition, while it relieved his more earthly apprehensions, if he had
+not remembered the singular, but far from supernatural dexterity with
+which Eastern warriors and even robbers continued then, as now, to elude
+the most vigilant precautions and baffle the most wakeful guards; and it
+was evident that the fire which burned the camp of an army had been
+kindled merely to gratify the revenge, or favour the escape of an
+individual.  Shaking, therefore, from his kingly spirit the thrill of
+superstitious awe that the greatness of the disaster, when associated
+with the name of a sorcerer, at first occasioned, he resolved to make
+advantage out of misfortune itself.  The excitement, the wrath of the
+troops, produced the temper most fit for action.
+
+"And Heaven," said the King of Spain to his knights and chiefs, as they
+assembled round him, "has, in this conflagration, announced to the
+warriors of the Cross, that henceforth their camp shall be the palaces of
+Granada!  Woe to the Moslem with to-morrow's sun!"
+
+Arms clanged, and swords leaped from their sheaths, as the Christian
+knights echoed the anathema--"WOE TO THE MOSLEM!"
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LEILA BY LYTTON, V4 ***
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