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+Project Gutenberg EBook, Leila by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Volume 5
+#200 in our series by Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
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+Title: Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V.
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+Release Date: January 2006  [EBook #9760]
+[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, V5 ***
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+
+                             LEILA
+
+                              OR,
+
+                     THE SIEGE OF GRANADA
+
+                              BY
+
+                     EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
+
+
+                            Book V.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE GREAT BATTLE.
+
+The day slowly dawned upon that awful night; and the Moors, still upon
+the battlements of Granada, beheld the whole army of Ferdinand on its
+march towards their wails.  At a distance lay the wrecks of the blackened
+and smouldering camp; while before them, gaudy and glittering pennons
+waving, and trumpets sounding, came the exultant legions of the foe.  The
+Moors could scarcely believe their senses.  Fondly anticipating the
+retreat of the Christians, after so signal a disaster, the gay and
+dazzling spectacle of their march to the assault filled them with
+consternation and alarm.
+
+While yet wondering and inactive, the trumpet of Boabdil was heard
+behind; and they beheld the Moorish king, at the head of his guards,
+emerging down the avenues that led to the gate.  The sight restored and
+exhilarated the gazers; and, when Boabdil halted in the space before the
+portals, the shout of twenty thousand warriors rose ominously to the ears
+of the advancing Christians.
+
+"Men of Granada!" said Boabdil, as soon as the deep and breathless
+silence had succeeded to that martial acclamation,--"the advance of the
+enemy is to their destruction!  In the fire of last night the hand of
+Allah wrote their doom.  Let us forth, each and all!  We will leave our
+homes unguarded--our hearts shall be their wall!  True, that our numbers
+are thinned by famine and by slaughter, but enough of us are yet left for
+the redemption of Granada.  Nor are the dead departed from us: the dead
+fight with us--their souls animate our own.  He who has lost a brother,
+becomes twice a man.  On this battle we will set all.  Liberty or chains!
+empire or exile! victory or death!  Forward!"
+
+He spoke, and gave the rein to his barb.  It bounded forward, and cleared
+the gloomy arch of the portals, and Boabdil el Chico was the first Moor
+who issued from Granada, to that last and eventful field.  Out, then,
+poured, as a river that rushes from caverns into day, the burnished and
+serried files of the Moorish cavalry.  Muza came the last, closing the
+array.  Upon his dark and stern countenance there spoke not the ardent
+enthusiasm of the sanguine king.  It was locked and rigid; and the
+anxieties of the last dismal weeks had thinned his cheeks, and ploughed
+deep lines around the firm lips and iron jaw which bespoke the obstinate
+and unconquerable resolution of his character.
+
+As Muza now spurred forward, and, riding along the wheeling ranks,
+marshalled them in order, arose the acclamation of female voices; and the
+warriors, who looked back at the sound, saw that their women--their wives
+and daughters, their mothers and their beloved (released from their
+seclusion, by a policy which bespoke the desperation of the cause)--were
+gazing at them, with outstretched arms, from the battlements and towers.
+The Moors knew that they were now to fight for their hearths and altars
+in the presence of those who, if they failed, became slaves and harlots;
+and each Moslem felt his heart harden like the steel of his own sabre.
+
+While the cavalry formed themselves into regular squadrons, and the tramp
+of the foemen came more near and near, the Moorish infantry, in
+miscellaneous, eager, and undisciplined bands, poured out, until,
+spreading wide and deep below the walls, Boabdil's charger was seen,
+rapidly careering amongst them, as, in short but distinct directions, or
+fiery adjurations, he sought at once to regulate their movements, and
+confirm their hot but capricious valour.
+
+Meanwhile the Christians had abruptly halted; and the politic Ferdinand
+resolved not to incur the full brunt of a whole population, in the first
+flush of their enthusiasm and despair.  He summoned to his side Hernando
+del Pulgar, and bade him, with a troop of the most adventurous and
+practised horsemen, advance towards the Moorish cavalry, and endeavour to
+draw the fiery valour of Muza away from the main army.  Then, splitting
+up his force into several sections, he dismissed each to different
+stations; some to storm the adjacent towers, others to fire the
+surrounding gardens and orchards; so that the action might consist rather
+of many battles than of one, and the Moors might lose the concentration
+and union, which made, at present, their most formidable strength.
+
+Thus, while the Mussulmans were waiting in order for the attack, they
+suddenly beheld the main body of the Christians dispersing, and, while
+yet in surprise and perplexed, they saw the fires breaking out from their
+delicious gardens, to the right and left of the walls, and hear the boom
+of the Christian artillery against the scattered bulwarks that guarded
+the approaches of that city.
+
+At that moment a cloud of dust rolled rapidly towards the post occupied
+in the van by Muza, and the shock of the Christian knights, in their
+mighty mail, broke upon the centre of the prince's squadron.
+
+Higher, by several inches, than the plumage of his companions, waved the
+crest of the gigantic del Pulgar; and, as Moor after Moor went down
+before his headlong lance, his voice, sounding deep and sepulchral
+through his visor, shouted out--"Death to the infidel!"
+
+The rapid and dexterous horsemen of Granada were not, however,
+discomfited by this fierce assault: opening their ranks with
+extraordinary celerity, they suffered the charge to pass comparatively
+harmless through their centre, and then, closing in one long and
+bristling line, cut off the knights from retreat.  The Christians wheeled
+round, and charged again upon their foe.
+
+"Where art thou, O Moslem dog! that wouldst play the lion'?--Where art
+thou, Muza Ben Abil Gazan'?"
+
+"Before thee, Christian!" cried a stern and clear voice; and from amongst
+the helmets of his people, gleamed the dazzling turban of the Moor.
+
+Hernando checked his steed, gazed a moment at his foe, turned back, for
+greater impetus to his charge, and, in a moment more, the bravest
+warriors of the two armies met, lance to lance.
+
+The round shield of Muza received the Christian's weapon; his own spear
+shivered, harmless, upon the breast of the giant.  He drew his sword,
+whirled it rapidly over his head, and, for some minutes, the eyes of the
+bystanders could scarcely mark the marvellous rapidity with which strokes
+were given and parried by those redoubted swordsmen.
+
+At length, Hernando, anxious to bring to bear his superior strength,
+spurred close to Muza; and, leaving his sword pendant by a thong to his
+wrist, seized the shield of Muza in his formidable grasp, and plucked it
+away, with a force that the Moor vainly endeavoured to resist: Muza,
+therefore, suddenly released his bold; and, ere the Spaniard had
+recovered his balance (which was lost by the success of his own strength,
+put forth to the utmost), he dashed upon him the hoofs of his black
+charger, and with a short but heavy mace, which he caught up from the
+saddlebow, dealt Hernando so thundering a blow upon the helmet, that the
+giant fell to the ground, stunned and senseless.
+
+To dismount, to repossess himself of his shield, to resume his sabre, to
+put one knee to the breast of his fallen foe, was the work of a moment;
+and then had Don Hernando del Pulgar been sped, without priest or
+surgeon, but that, alarmed by the peril of their most valiant comrade,
+twenty knights spurred at once to the rescue, and the points of twenty
+lances kept the Lion of Granada from his prey.  Thither, with similar
+speed, rushed the Moorish champions; and the fight became close and
+deadly round the body of the still unconscious Christian.  Not an instant
+of leisure to unlace the helmet of Hernando, by removing which, alone,
+the Moorish blade could find a mortal place, was permitted to Muza; and,
+what with the spears and trampling hoofs around him, the situation of the
+Paynim was more dangerous than that of the Christian.  Meanwhile,
+Hernando recovered his dizzy senses; and, made aware of his state,
+watched his occasion, and suddenly shook off the knee of the Moor.  With
+another effort he was on his feet and the two champions stood confronting
+each other, neither very eager to renew the combat.  But on foot, Muza,
+daring and rash as he was, could not but recognise his disadvantage
+against the enormous strength and impenetrable armour of the Christian.
+He drew back, whistled to his barb, that, piercing the ranks of the
+horsemen, was by his side on the instant, remounted, and was in the midst
+of the foe, almost ere the slower Spaniard was conscious of his
+disappearance.
+
+But Hernando was not delivered from his enemy.  Clearing a space around
+him, as three knights, mortally wounded, fell beneath his sabre, Muza now
+drew from behind his shoulder his short Arabian bow, and shaft after
+shaft came rattling upon the mail of the dismounted Christian with so
+marvellous a celerity, that, encumbered as he was with his heavy
+accoutrements, he was unable either to escape from the spot, or ward off
+that arrowy rain; and felt that nothing but chance, or Our Lady, could
+prevent the death which one such arrow would occasion, if it should find
+the opening of the visor, or the joints of the hauberk.
+
+"Mother of Mercy," groaned the knight, perplexed and enraged, "let not
+thy servant be shot down like a hart, by this cowardly warfare; but, if I
+must fall, be it with mine enemy, grappling hand to hand."
+
+While yet muttering this short invocation, the war-cry of Spain was heard
+hard by, and the gallant company of Villena was seen scouring across the
+plain to the succour of their comrades.  The deadly attention of Muza was
+distracted from individual foes, however eminent; he wheeled round,
+re-collected his men, and, in a serried charge, met the new enemy in
+midway.
+
+While the contest thus fared in that part of the field, the scheme of
+Ferdinand had succeeded so far as to break up the battle in detached
+sections.  Far and near, plain, grove, garden, tower, presented each the
+scene of obstinate and determined conflict.  Boabdil, at the head of his
+chosen guard, the flower of the haughtier tribe of nobles who were
+jealous of the fame and blood of the tribe of Muza, and followed also by
+his gigantic Ethiopians, exposed his person to every peril, with the
+desperate valour of a man who feels his own stake is greatest in the
+field.  As he most distrusted the infantry, so amongst the infantry he
+chiefly bestowed his presence; and wherever he appeared, he sufficed, for
+the moment, to turn the changes of the engagement.  At length, at mid-day
+Ponce de Leon led against the largest detachment of the Moorish foot a
+strong and numerous battalion of the best-disciplined and veteran
+soldiery of Spain.  He had succeeded in winning a fortress, from which
+his artillery could play with effect; and the troops he led were
+composed, partly of men flushed with recent triumph, and partly of a
+fresh reserve, now first brought into the field.  A comely and a
+breathless spectacle it was to behold this Christian squadron emerging
+from a blazing copse, which they fired on their march; the red light
+gleaming on their complete armour, as, in steady and solemn order, they
+swept on to the swaying and clamorous ranks of the Moorish infantry.
+Boabdil learned the danger from his scouts; and hastily quitting a tower
+from which he had for a while repulsed a hostile legion, he threw himself
+into the midst of the battalions menaced by the skilful Ponce de Leon.
+Almost at the same moment, the wild and ominous apparition of Almamen,
+long absent from the eyes of the Moors, appeared in the same quarter, so
+suddenly and unexpectedly, that none knew whence he had emerged; the
+sacred standard in his left hand--his sabre, bared and dripping gore, in
+his right--his face exposed, and its powerful features working with an
+excitement that seemed inspired; his abrupt presence breathed a new soul
+into the Moors.
+
+"They come! they come!" he shrieked aloud.  "The God of the East hath
+delivered the Goth into your hands!"  From rank to rank--from line to
+line--sped the santon; and, as the mystic banner gleamed before the
+soldiery, each closed his eyes and muttered an "amen" to his adjurations.
+And now, to the cry of "Spain and St. Iago," came trampling down the
+relentless charge of the Christian war.  At the same instant, from the
+fortress lately taken by Ponce de Leon, the artillery opened upon the
+Moors, and did deadly havoc.  The Moslems wavered a moment when before
+them gleamed the white banner of Almamen; and they beheld him rushing,
+alone and on foot, amidst the foe.  Taught to believe the war itself
+depended on the preservation of the enchanted banner, the Paynims could
+not see it thus rashly adventured without anxiety and shame: they
+rallied, advanced firmly, and Boabdil himself, with waving cimiter and
+fierce exclamations, dashed impetuously at the head of his guards and
+Ethiopians into the affray.  The battle became obstinate and bloody.
+Thrice the white banner disappeared amidst the closing ranks; and thrice,
+like a moon from the clouds, it shone forth again--the light and guide of
+the Pagan power.
+
+The day ripened; and the hills already cast lengthening shadows over the
+blazing groves and the still Darro, whose waters, in every creek where
+the tide was arrested, ran red with blood, when Ferdinand, collecting his
+whole reserve, descended from the eminence on which hitherto he had
+posted himself.  With him moved three thousand foot and a thousand horse,
+fresh in their vigour, and panting for a share in that glorious day.  The
+king himself, who, though constitutionally fearless, from motives of
+policy rarely perilled his person, save on imminent occasions, was
+resolved not to be outdone by Boabdil; and armed cap-a-pied in mail, so
+wrought with gold that it seemed nearly all of that costly metal, with
+his snow-white plumage waving above a small diadem that surmounted his
+lofty helm, he seemed a fit leader to that armament of heroes.  Behind
+him flaunted the great gonfanon of Spain, and trump and cymbal heralded
+his approach.  The Count de Tendilla rode by his side.
+
+"Senor," said Ferdinand, "the infidels fight hard; but they are in the
+snare--we are about to close the nets upon them.  But what cavalcade is
+this?"
+
+The group that thus drew the king's attention consisted of six squires,
+bearing, on a martial litter, composed of shields, the stalwart form of
+Hernando del Pulgar.
+
+"Ah, the dogs!" cried the king, as he recognised the pale features of the
+darling of the army,--"have they murdered the bravest knight that ever
+fought for Christendom?"
+
+"Not that, your majesty," quoth he of the Exploits, faintly, "but I am
+sorely stricken."
+
+"It must have been more than man who struck thee down," said the king.
+
+"It was the mace of Muza Ben Abil Gazan, an please you, sire," said one
+of the squires; "but it came on the good knight unawares, and long after
+his own arm had seemingly driven away the Pagan."
+
+"We will avenge thee well," said the king, setting his teeth: "let our
+own leeches tend thy wounds.  Forward, sir knights!  St. Iago and Spain!"
+
+The battle had now gathered to a vortex; Muza and his cavalry had joined
+Boabdil and the Moorish foot.  On the other hand, Villena had been
+reinforced by detachments that in almost every other quarter of the field
+had routed the foe.  The Moors had been driven back, though inch by inch;
+they were now in the broad space before the very walls of the city, which
+were still crowded by the pale and anxious faces of the aged and the
+women: and, at every pause in the artillery, the voices that spoke of
+HOME were borne by that lurid air to the ears of the infidels.  The shout
+that rang through the Christian force as Ferdinand now joined it struck
+like a death-knell upon the last hope of Boabdil.  But the blood of his
+fierce ancestry burned in his veins, and the cheering voice of Almamen,
+whom nothing daunted, inspired him with a kind of superstitious frenzy.
+
+"King against king--so be it!  Let Allah decide between us!" cried the
+Moorish monarch.  "Bind up this wound 'tis well!  A steed for the santon!
+Now, my prophet and my friend, mount by the side of thy king--let us, at
+least, fall together.  Lelilies!  Lelilies!"
+
+Throughout the brave Christian ranks went a thrill of reluctant
+admiration, as they beheld the Paynim king, conspicuous by his fair beard
+and the jewels of his harness, lead the scanty guard yet left to him once
+more into the thickest of their lines.  Simultaneously Muza and his
+Zegris made their fiery charge; and the Moorish infantry, excited by the
+example of their leaders, followed with unslackened and dogged zeal.  The
+Christians gave way--they were beaten back: Ferdinand spurred forward;
+and, ere either party were well aware of it, both kings met in the same
+melee: all order and discipline, for the moment, lost, general and
+monarch were, as common soldiers, fighting hand to hand.  It was then
+that Ferdinand, after bearing down before his lance Naim Reduon, second
+only to Muza in the songs of Granada, beheld opposed to him a strange
+form, that seemed to that royal Christian rather fiend than man: his
+raven hair and beard, clotted with blood, hung like snakes about a
+countenance whose features, naturally formed to give expression to the
+darkest passions, were distorted with the madness of despairing rage.
+Wounded in many places, the blood dabbled his mail; while, over his head,
+he waved the banner wrought with mystic characters, which Ferdinand had
+already been taught to believe the workmanship of demons.
+
+"Now, perjured king of the Nazarenes!" shouted this formidable champion,
+"we meet at last!--no longer host and guest, monarch and dervise, but man
+to man!  I am Almamen!  Die!"
+
+He spoke; and his sword descended so fiercely on that anointed head that
+Ferdinand bent to his saddle-bow.  But the king quickly recovered his
+seat, and gallantly met the encounter; it was one that might have tasked
+to the utmost the prowess of his bravest knight.  Passions which, in
+their number, their nature, and their excess, animated no other champion
+on either side, gave to the arm of Almamen the Israelite a preternatural
+strength; his blows fell like rain upon the harness of the king; and the
+fiery eyes, the gleaming banner of the mysterious sorcerer, who had
+eluded the tortures of his Inquisition,--who had walked unscathed through
+the midst of his army,--whose single hand had consumed the encampment of
+a host, filled the stout heart of a king with a belief that he
+encountered no earthly foe.  Fortunately, perhaps, for Ferdinand and
+Spain, the contest did not last long.  Twenty horsemen spurred into the
+melee to the rescue of the plumed diadem:  Tendilla arrived the first;
+with a stroke of his two-handed sword, the white banner was cleft from
+its staff, and fell to the earth.  At that sight the Moors round broke
+forth in a wild and despairing cry: that cry spread from rank to rank,
+from horse to foot; the Moorish infantry, sorely pressed on all sides,
+no sooner learned the disaster than they turned to fly: the rout was as
+fatal as it was sudden.  The Christian reserve, just brought into the
+field, poured down upon them with a simultaneous charge.  Boabdil, too
+much engaged to be the first to learn the downfall of the sacred
+insignia, suddenly saw himself almost alone, with his diminished
+Ethiopians and a handful of his cavaliers.
+
+"Yield thee, Boabdil el Chico!" cried Tendilla, from his rear, "or thou
+canst not be saved."
+
+"By the Prophet, never!" exclaimed the king: and he dashed his barb
+against the wall of spears behind him; and with but a score or so of his
+guard, cut his way through the ranks that were not unwilling, perhaps, to
+spare so brave a foe.  As he cleared the Spanish battalions, the
+unfortunate monarch checked his horse for a moment and gazed along the
+plain: he beheld his army flying in all directions, save in that single
+spot where yet glittered the turban of Muza Ben Abil Gazan.  As he gazed,
+he heard the panting nostrils of the chargers behind, and saw the
+levelled spears of a company despatched to take him, alive or dead, by
+the command of Ferdinand.  He laid the reins upon his horse's neck and
+galloped into the city--three lances quivered against the portals as he
+disappeared through the shadows of the arch.  But while Muza remained,
+all was not yet lost: he perceived the flight of the infantry and the
+king, and with his followers galloped across the plain: he came in time
+to encounter and slay, to a man, the pursuers of Boabdil; he then threw
+himself before the flying Moors:
+
+"Do ye fly in the sight of your wives and daughters?  Would ye not rather
+they beheld ye die?"
+
+A thousand voices answered him.  "The banner is in the hands of the
+infidel--all is lost!"  They swept by him, and stopped not till they
+gained the gates.
+
+But still a small and devoted remnant of the Moorish cavaliers remained
+to shed a last glory over defeat itself.  With Muza, their soul and
+centre, they fought every atom of ground: it was, as the chronicler
+expresses it, as if they grasped the soil with their arms.  Twice they
+charged into the midst of the foe: the slaughter they made doubled their
+own number; but, gathering on and closing in, squadron upon squadron,
+came the whole Christian army--they were encompassed, wearied out, beaten
+back, as by an ocean.  Like wild beasts, driven, at length, to their
+lair, they retreated with their faces to the foe; and when Muza came, the
+last--his cimiter shivered to the hilt,--he had scarcely breath to
+command the gates to be closed and the portcullis lowered, ere he fell
+from his charger in a sudden and deadly swoon, caused less by his
+exhaustion than his agony and shame.  So ended the last battle fought for
+the Monarchy of Granada!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE NOVICE.
+
+It was in one of the cells of a convent renowned for the piety of its
+inmates and the wholesome austerity of its laws that a young novice sat
+alone.  The narrow casement was placed so high in the cold grey wall as
+to forbid to the tenant of the cell the solace of sad or the distraction
+of pious thoughts, which a view of the world without might afford.
+Lovely, indeed, was the landscape that spread below; but it was barred
+from those youthful and melancholy eyes: for Nature might tempt to a
+thousand thoughts, not of a tenor calculated to reconcile the heart to an
+eternal sacrifice of the sweet human ties.  But a faint and partial gleam
+of sunshine broke through the aperture and made yet more cheerless the
+dreary aspect and gloomy appurtenances of the cell.  And the young novice
+seemed to carry on within herself that struggle of emotions without which
+there is no victory in the resolves of virtue: sometimes she wept
+bitterly, but with a low, subdued sorrow, which spoke rather of
+despondency than passion; sometimes she raised her head from her breast,
+and smiled as she looked upward, or as her eyes rested on the crucifix
+and the death's head that were placed on the rude table by the pallet on
+which she sat.  They were emblems of death here, and life hereafter,
+which, perhaps, afforded to her the sources of a twofold consolation.
+
+She was yet musing, when a slight tap at the door was heard, and the
+abbess of the convent appeared.
+
+"Daughter," said she, "I have brought thee the comfort of a sacred
+visitor.  The Queen of Spain, whose pious tenderness is maternally
+anxious for thy full contentment with thy lot, has sent hither a holy
+friar, whom she deems more soothing in his counsels than our brother
+Tomas, whose ardent zeal often terrifies those whom his honest spirit
+only desires to purify and guide.  I will leave him with thee.  May the
+saints bless his ministry!"  So saying the abbess retired from the
+threshold, making way for a form in the garb of a monk, with the hood
+drawn over the face.  The monk bowed his head meekly, advanced into the
+cell, closed the door, and seated himself, on a stool--which, save the
+table and the pallet, seemed the sole furniture of the dismal chamber.
+
+"Daughter," said he, after a pause, "it is a rugged and a mournful lot
+this renunciation of earth and all its fair destinies and soft
+affections, to one not wholly prepared and armed for the sacrifice.
+Confide in me, my child; I am no dire inquisitor, seeking to distort thy
+words to thine own peril.  I am no bitter and morose ascetic.  Beneath
+these robes still beats a human heart that can sympathise with human
+sorrows.  Confide in me without fear.  Dost thou not dread the fate they
+would force upon thee?  Dost thou not shrink back?  Wouldst thou not be
+free?"
+
+"No," said the poor novice; but the denial came faint and irresolute from
+her lips.
+
+"Pause," said the friar, growing more earnest in his tone: "pause--there
+is yet time."
+
+"Nay," said the novice, looking up with some surprise in her countenance;
+"nay, even were I so weak, escape now is impossible.  What hand could
+unbar the gates of the convent?"
+
+"Mine!" cried the monk, with impetuosity.  "Yes, I have that power.  In
+all Spain, but one man can save thee, and I am he."
+
+"You!" faltered the novice, gazing at her strange visitor with mingled
+astonishment and alarm.  "And who are you that could resist the fiat of
+that Tomas de Torquemada, before whom, they tell me, even the crowned
+heads of Castile and Arragon veil low?"
+
+The monk half rose, with an impatient and almost haughty start, at this
+interrogatory; but, reseating himself, replied, in a deep and half-
+whispered voice "Daughter, listen to me!  It is true, that Isabel of
+Spain (whom the Mother of Mercy bless! for merciful to all is her secret
+heart, if not her outward policy)--it is true that Isabel of Spain,
+fearful that the path to Heaven might be made rougher to thy feet than it
+well need be (there was a slight accent of irony in the monk's voice as
+he thus spoke), selected a friar of suasive eloquence and gentle manners
+to visit thee.  He was charged with letters to yon abbess from the queen.
+Soft though the friar, he was yet a hypocrite.  Nay, hear me out! he
+loved to worship the rising sun; and he did not wish always to remain a
+simple friar, while the Church had higher dignities of this earth to
+bestow.  In the Christian camp, daughter, there was one who burned for
+tidings of thee,--whom thine image haunted--who, stern as thou wert to
+him, loved thee with a love he knew not of, till thou wert lost to him.
+Why dost thou tremble, daughter? listen, yet!  To that lover, for he was
+one of high birth, came the monk; to that lover the monk sold his
+mission.  The monk will have a ready tale, that he was waylaid amidst the
+mountains by armed men, and robbed of his letters to the abbess.  The
+lover took his garb, and he took the letters; and he hastened hither.
+Leila! beloved Leila! behold him at thy feet!"
+
+The monk raised his cowl; and, dropping on his knee beside her, presented
+to her gaze the features of the Prince of Spain.
+
+"You!" said Leila, averting her countenance, and vainly endeavouring to
+extricate the hand which he had seized.  "This is indeed cruel.  You, the
+author of so many sufferings--such calumny--such reproach!"
+
+"I will repair all," said Don Juan, fervently.  "I alone, I repeat it,
+have the power to set you free.  You are no longer a Jewess; you are one
+of our faith; there is now no bar upon our loves.  Imperious though my
+father,--all dark and dread as is this new POWER which he is rashly
+erecting in his dominions, the heir of two monarchies is not so poor in
+influence and in friends as to be unable to offer the woman of his love
+an inviolable shelter alike from priest and despot.  Fly with me!--quit
+this dreary sepulchre ere the last stone close over thee for ever!  I
+have horses, I have guards at hand.  This night it can be arranged.  This
+night--oh, bliss!--thou mayest be rendered up to earth and love!"
+
+"Prince," said Leila, who had drawn herself from Juan's grasp during this
+address, and who now stood at a little distance erect and proud, "you
+tempt me in vain; or, rather you offer me no temptation.  I have made my
+choice; I abide by it."
+
+"Oh!  bethink thee," said the prince, in a voice of real and imploring
+anguish; "bethink thee well of the consequences of thy refusal.  Thou
+canst not see them yet; thine ardour blinds thee.  But, when hour after
+hour, day after day, year after year, steals on in the appalling monotony
+of this sanctified prison; when thou shalt see thy youth--withering
+without love--thine age without honour; when thy heart shall grow as
+stone within thee, beneath the looks of you icy spectres; when nothing
+shall vary the aching dulness of wasted life save a longer fast or a
+severer penance: then, then will thy grief be rendered tenfold by the
+despairing and remorseful thought, that thine own lips sealed thine own
+sentence.  Thou mayest think," continued Juan, with rapid eagerness,
+"that my love to thee was at first light and dishonouring.  Be it so.  I
+own that my youth has passed in idle wooings, and the mockeries of
+affection.  But for the first time in my life I feel that--I love.  Thy
+dark eyes--thy noble beauty--even thy womanly scorn, have fascinated me.
+I--never yet disdained where I have been a suitor--acknowledge, at last,
+that there is a triumph in the conquest of a woman's heart.  Oh, Leila!
+do not--do not reject me.  You know not how rare and how deep a love you
+cast away."
+
+The novice was touched: the present language of Don Juan was so different
+from what it had been before; the earnest love that breathed in his
+voice--that looked from his eyes, struck a chord in her breast; it
+reminded her of her own unconquered, unconquerable love for the lost
+Muza.  She was touched, then--touched to tears; but her resolves were not
+shaken.
+
+"Oh, Leila!" resumed the prince, fondly, mistaking the nature of her
+emotion, and seeking to pursue the advantage he imagined he had gained,
+"look at yonder sunbeam, struggling through the loophole of thy cell.  Is
+it not a messenger from the happy world? does it not plead for me? does
+it not whisper to thee of the green fields and the laughing vineyards,
+and all the beautiful prodigality of that earth thou art about to
+renounce for ever?  Dost thou dread my love?  Are the forms around thee,
+ascetic and lifeless, fairer to thine eyes than mine?  Dost thou doubt my
+power to protect thee?  I tell thee that the proudest nobles of Spain
+would flock around my banner, were it necessary to guard thee by force of
+arms.  Yet, speak the word--be mine--and I will fly hence with thee to
+climes where the Church has not cast out its deadly roots, and, forgetful
+of crowns and cares, live alone for thee:  Ah, speak!"
+
+"My lord," said Leila, calmly, and rousing herself to the necessary
+effort, "I am deeply and sincerely grateful for the interest you express
+--for the affection you avow.  But you deceive yourself.  I have pondered
+well over the alternative I have taken.  I do not regret nor repent--much
+less would I retract it.  The earth that you speak of, full of affections
+and of bliss to others, has no ties, no allurements for me.  I desire
+only peace, repose, and an early death."
+
+"Can it be possible," said the prince, growing pale, "that thou lovest
+another?  Then, indeed, and then only, would my wooing be in vain."
+
+The cheek of the novice grew deeply flushed, but the color soon subsided;
+she murmured to herself, "Why should I blush to own it now?" and then
+spoke aloud: "Prince, I trust I have done with the world; and bitter the
+pang I feel when you call me back to it.  But you merit my candour; I
+have loved another; and in that thought, as in an urn, lie the ashes of
+all affection.  That other is of a different faith.  We may never--never
+meet again below, but it is a solace to pray that we may meet above.
+That solace, and these cloisters, are dearer to me than all the pomp, all
+the pleasures, of the world."
+
+The prince sank down, and, covering his face with his hands, groaned
+aloud--but made no reply.
+
+"Go, then, Prince of Spain," continued the novice; "son of the noble
+Isabel, Leila is not unworthy of her cares.  Go, and pursue the great
+destinies that await you.  And if you forgive--if you still cherish a
+thought of--the poor Jewish maiden, soften, alleviate, mitigate, the
+wretched and desperate doom that awaits the fallen race she has abandoned
+for thy creed."
+
+"Alas, alas!" said the prince, mournfully;  "thee alone, perchance, of
+all thy race, I could have saved from the bigotry that is fast covering
+this knightly land like the rising of an irresistible sea--and thou
+rejectest me!  Take time, at least, to pause--to consider.  Let me see
+thee again tomorrow."
+
+"No, prince, no--not again!  I will keep thy secret only if I see thee no
+more.  If thou persist in a suit that I feel to be that of sin and shame,
+then, indeed, mine honour--"
+
+"Hold!" interrupted Juan, with haughty impatience, "I torment, I harass
+you no more.  I release you from my importunity.  Perhaps already I have
+stooped too low."  He drew the cowl over his features, and strode
+sullenly to the door; but, turning for one last gaze on the form that had
+so strangely fascinated a heart capable of generous emotions, the meek
+and despondent posture of the novice, her tender youth, her gloomy fate,
+melted his momentary pride and resentment.  "God bless and reconcile
+thee, poor child!" he said, in a voice choked with contending passions--
+and the door closed upon his form.
+
+"I thank thee, Heaven, that it was not Muza!" muttered Leila, breaking
+from a reverie in which she seemed to be communing with her own soul: "I
+feel that I could not have resisted him."  With that thought she knelt
+down, in humble and penitent self-reproach, and prayed for strength.
+
+Ere she had risen from her supplications, her solitude was again invaded
+by Torquemada, the Dominican.
+
+This strange man, though the author of cruelties at which nature recoils,
+had some veins of warm and gentle feeling streaking, as it were, the
+marble of his hard character; and when he had thoroughly convinced
+himself of the pure and earnest zeal of the young convert, he relaxed
+from the grim sternness he had at first exhibited towards her.  He loved
+to exert the eloquence he possessed, in raising her spirit, in
+reconciling her doubts.  He prayed for her, and he prayed beside her,
+with passion and with tears.
+
+He stayed long with the novice; and, when he left her, she was, if not
+happy, at least contented.  Her warmest wish now was to abridge the
+period of her novitiate, which, at her desire, the Church had already
+rendered merely a nominal probation.  She longed to put irresolution out
+of her power, and to enter at once upon the narrow road through the
+strait gate.
+
+The gentle and modest piety of the young novice touched the sisterhood;
+she was endeared to all of them.  Her conversion was an event that broke
+the lethargy of their stagnant life.  She became an object of general
+interest, of avowed pride, of kindly compassion; and their kindness to
+her, who from her cradle had seen little of her own sex, had a great
+effect towards calming and soothing her mind.  But, at night, her dreams
+brought before her the dark and menacing countenance of her father.
+Sometimes he seemed to pluck her from the gates of heaven, and to sink
+with her into the yawning abyss below.  Sometimes she saw him with her
+beside the altar, but imploring her to forswear the Saviour, before
+whose crucifix she knelt.  Occasionally her visions were haunted, also,
+with Muza--but in less terrible guise She saw his calm and melancholy
+eyes fixed upon her; and his voice asked, "Canst thou take a vow that
+makes it sinful to remember me?"
+
+The night, that usually brings balm and oblivion to the sad, was thus
+made more dreadful to Leila than the day.
+
+Her health grew feebler, and feebler, but her mind still was firm.  In
+happier time and circumstance that poor novice would have been a great
+character; but she was one of the countless victims the world knows not
+of, whose virtues are in silent motives, whose struggles are in the
+solitary heart.
+
+Of the prince she heard and saw no more.  There were times when she
+fancied, from oblique and obscure hints, that the Dominican had been
+aware of Don Juan's disguise and visit.  But, if so, that knowledge
+appeared only to increase the gentleness, almost the respect, which
+Torquemada manifested towards her.  Certainly, since that day, from some
+cause or other the priest's manner had been softened when he addressed
+her; and he who seldom had recourse to other arts than those of censure
+and of menace, often uttered sentiments half of pity and half of praise.
+
+Thus consoled and supported in the day,--thus haunted and terrified by
+night, but still not repenting her resolve, Leila saw the time glide on
+to that eventful day when her lips were to pronounce that irrevocable vow
+which is the epitaph of life.  While in this obscure and remote convent
+progressed the history of an individual, we are summoned back to witness
+the crowning fate of an expiring dynasty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE PAUSE BETWEEN DEFEAT AND SURRENDER.
+
+The unfortunate Boabdil plunged once more amidst the recesses of the
+Alhambra.  Whatever his anguish or his despondency, none were permitted
+to share, or even to witness, his emotions.  But he especially resisted
+the admission to his solitude, demanded by his mother, implored by his
+faithful Amine, and sorrowfully urged by Muza: those most loved, or most
+respected, were, above all, the persons from whom he most shrank.
+
+Almamen was heard of no more.  It was believed that he had perished in
+the battle.  But he was one of those who, precisely as they are effective
+when present, are forgotten in absence.  And, in the meanwhile, as the
+Vega was utterly desolated, and all supplies were cut off, famine, daily
+made more terrifically severe, diverted the attention of each humbler
+Moor from the fall of the city to his individual sufferings.
+
+New persecutions fell upon the miserable Jews.  Not having taken any
+share in the conflict (as was to be expected from men who had no stake in
+the country which they dwelt in, and whose brethren had been taught so
+severe a lesson upon the folly of interference), no sentiment of
+fellowship in danger mitigated the hatred and loathing with which they
+were held; and as, in their lust of gain, many of them continued, amidst
+the agony and starvation of the citizens, to sell food at enormous
+prices, the excitement of the multitude against them--released by the
+state of the city from all restraint and law--made itself felt by the
+most barbarous excesses.  Many of the houses of the Israelites were
+attacked by the mob, plundered, razed to the ground, and the owner
+tortured to death, to extort confession of imaginary wealth.  Not to sell
+what was demanded was a crime; to sell it was a crime also.  These
+miserable outcasts fled to whatever secret places the vaults of their
+houses or the caverns in the hills within the city could yet afford them,
+cursing their fate, and almost longing even for the yoke of the Christian
+bigots.
+
+Thus passed several days; the defence of the city abandoned to its naked
+walls and mighty gates.  The glaring sun looked down upon closed shops
+and depopulated streets, save when some ghostly and skeleton band of the
+famished poor collected, in a sudden paroxysm of revenge or despair,
+around the stormed and fired mansion of a detested Israelite.
+
+At length Boabdil aroused himself from his seclusion; and Muza, to his
+own surprise, was summoned to the presence of the king.  He found Boabdil
+in one of the most gorgeous halls of his gorgeous palace.
+
+Within the Tower of Comares is a vast chamber, still called the hall of
+the Ambassadors.  Here it was that Boabdil now held his court.  On the
+glowing walls hung trophies and banners, and here and there an Arabian
+portrait of some bearded king.  By the windows, which overlooked the most
+lovely banks of the Llarro, gathered the santons and alfaquis, a little
+apart from the main crowd.  Beyond, through half-veiling draperies, might
+be seen the great court of the Alberca, whose peristyles were hung with
+flowers; while, in the centre, the gigantic basin, which gives its name
+to the court, caught the sunlight obliquely, and its waves glittered on
+the eye from amidst the roses that then clustered over it.
+
+In the audience hall itself, a canopy, over the royal cushions on which
+Boabdil reclined, was blazoned with the heraldic insignia of Granada's
+monarchs.  His guard, and his mutes, and his eunuchs, and his courtiers,
+and his counsellors, and his captains, were ranged in long files on
+either side the canopy.  It seemed the last flicker of the lamp of the
+Moorish empire, that hollow and unreal pomp!  As Muza approached the
+monarch, he was startled by the change of his countenance: the young and
+beautiful Boabdil seemed to have grown suddenly old; his eyes were
+sunken, his countenance sown with wrinkles, and his voice sounded broken
+and hollow on the ears of his kinsman.
+
+"Come hither, Muza," said he; "seat thyself beside me, and listen as thou
+best canst to the tidings we are about to hear."
+
+As Muza placed himself on a cushion, a little below the king, Boabdil
+motioned to one amongst the crowd.  "Hamet," said he, "thou hast examined
+the state of the Christian camp; what news dost thou bring?"
+
+"Light of the Faithful," answered the Moor, "it is a camp no longer--it
+has already become a city.  Nine towns of Spain were charged with the
+task; stone has taken the place of canvas; towers and streets arise like
+the buildings of a genius; and the misbelieving king hath sworn that this
+new city shall not be left until Granada sees his standard on its walls."
+
+"Go on," said Boabdil, calmly.
+
+"Traders and men of merchandise flock thither daily; the spot is one
+bazaar; all that should supply our famishing country pours its plenty
+into their mart."
+
+Boabdil motioned to the Moor to withdraw, and an alfaqui advanced in his
+stead.
+
+"Successor of the Prophet, and darling of the world!" said the reverend
+man, "the alfaquis and seers of Granada implore thee on their knees to
+listen to their voice.  They have consulted the Books of Fate; thy have
+implored a sign from the Prophet; and they find that the glory has left
+thy people and thy crown.  The fall of Granada is predestined; God is
+great!"
+
+"You shall have my answer forthwith," said Boabdil.  "Abdelemic,
+approach."
+
+From the crowd came an aged and white-bearded man, the governor of the
+city.
+
+"Speak, old man," said the king.
+
+"Oh, Boabdil!" said the veteran, with faltering tones, while the tears
+rolled down his cheeks; "son of a race of kings and heroes! would that
+thy servant had fallen dead on thy threshold this day, and that the lips
+of a Moorish noble had never been polluted by the words that I now utter!
+Our state is hopeless; our granaries are as the sands of the desert:
+there is in them life neither for beast nor man.  The war-horse that bore
+the hero is now consumed for his food; the population of thy city, with
+one voice, cry for chains and--bread!  I have spoken."
+
+"Admit the Ambassador of Egypt," said Boabdil, as Abdelmelic retired.
+There was a pause: one of the draperies at the end of the hall was drawn
+aside; and with the slow and sedate majesty of their tribe and land,
+paced forth a dark and swarthy train, the envoys of the Egyptian soldan.
+Six of the band bore costly presents of gems and weapons, and the
+procession closed with four veiled slaves, whose beauty had been the
+boast of the ancient valley of the Nile.
+
+"Sun of Granada and day--star of the faithful!" said the chief of the
+Egyptians, "my lord, the Soldan of Egypt, delight of the world, and rose-
+tree of the East, thus answers to the letters of Boabdil.  He grieves
+that be cannot send the succour thou demandest; and informing himself of
+the condition of thy territories, he finds that Granada no longer holds a
+seaport by which his forces (could he send them) might find an entrance
+into Spain.  He implores thee to put thy trust in Allah, who will not
+desert his chosen ones, and lays these gifts, in pledge of amity and
+love, at the feet of my lord the king."
+
+"It is a gracious and well-timed offering," said Boabdil, with a writhing
+lip; "we thank him."  There was now a long and dead silence as the
+ambassadors swept from the hall of audience, when Boabdil suddenly raised
+his head from his breast and looked around his hall with a kingly and
+majestic look: "Let the heralds of Ferdinand of Spain approach."
+
+A groan involuntarily broke from the breast of Muza: it was echoed by a
+murmur of abhorrence and despair from the gallant captains who stood
+around; but to that momentary burst succeeded a breathless silence, as
+from another drapery, opposite the royal couch, gleamed the burnished
+mail of the knights of Spain.  Foremost of these haughty visitors, whose
+iron heels clanked loudly on the tesselated floor, came a noble and
+stately form, in full armour, save the helmet, and with a mantle of azure
+velvet, wrought with the silver cross that made the badge of the
+Christian war.  Upon his manly countenance was visible no sign of undue
+arrogance or exultation; but something of that generous pity which brave
+men feel for conquered foes dimmed the lustre of his commanding eye, and
+softened the wonted sternness of his martial bearing.  He and his train
+approached the king with a profound salutation of respect; and falling
+back, motioned to the herald that accompanied him, and whose garb, breast
+and back, was wrought with the arms of Spain, to deliver himself of his
+mission.
+
+"To Boabdil!" said the herald, with a loud voice, that filled the whole
+expanse, and thrilled with various emotions the dumb assembly.  "To
+Boabdil el Chico, King of Granada, Ferdinand of Arragon and Isabel of
+Castile send royal greeting.  They command me to express their hope that
+the war is at length concluded; and they offer to the King of Granada
+such terms of capitulation as a king, without dishonour, may receive.  In
+the stead of this city, which their Most Christian Majesties will restore
+to their own dominion, as is just, they offer, O king, princely
+territories in the Alpuxarras mountains to your sway, holding them by
+oath of fealty to the Spanish crown.  To the people of Granada, their
+Most Christian Majesties promise full protection of property, life, and
+faith under a government by their own magistrates, and according to their
+own laws; exemption from tribute for three years; and taxes thereafter,
+regulated by the custom and ratio of their present imposts.  To such
+Moors as, discontented with these provisions, would abandon Granada, are
+promised free passage for themselves and their wealth.  In return for
+these marks of their royal bounty, their Most Christian Majesties summon
+Granada to surrender (if no succour meanwhile arrive) within seventy
+days.  And these offers are now solemnly recorded in the presence, and
+through the mission, of the noble and renowned knight, Gonzalvo of
+Cordova, deputed by their Most Christian Majesties from their new city of
+Santa Fe."
+
+When the herald had concluded, Boabdil cast his eye over his thronged and
+splendid court.  No glance of fire met his own; amidst the silent crowd,
+a resigned content was alone to be perceived: the proposals exceeded the
+hope of the besieged.
+
+"And," asked Boabdil, with a deep-drawn sigh, "if we reject these
+offers?"
+
+"Noble prince," said Gonzalvo, earnestly, "ask us not to wound thine ears
+with the alternative.  Pause, and consider of our offers; and, if thou
+doubtest, O brave king! mount the towers of thine Alhambra, survey our
+legions marshalled beneath thy walls, and turn thine eyes upon a brave
+people, defeated, not by human valour, but by famine, and the inscrutable
+will of God."
+
+"Your monarchs shall have our answer, gentle Christian, perchance ere
+nightfall.  And you, Sir Knight, who hast delivered a message bitter for
+kings to bear, receive, at least, our thanks for such bearing as might
+best mitigate the import.  Our vizier will bear to your apartment those
+tokens of remembrance that are yet left to the monarch of Granada to
+bestow."
+
+"Muza," resumed the king, as the Spaniards left the presence--"thou hast
+heard all.  What is the last counsel thou canst give thy sovereign?"
+
+The fierce Moor had with difficulty waited this licence to utter such
+sentiments as death only could banish from that unconquerable heart.  He
+rose, descended from the couch, and, standing a little below the king,
+and facing the motley throng of all of wise or brave yet left to Granada,
+thus spoke:--
+
+"Why should we surrender? two hundred thousand inhabitants are yet within
+our walls; of these, twenty thousand, at least, are Moors, who have hands
+and swords.  Why should we surrender?  Famine presses us, it is true; but
+hunger, that makes the lion more terrible, shall it make the man more
+base?  Do ye despair? so be it! despair in the valiant ought to have an
+irresistible force.  Despair has made cowards brave: shall it sink the
+brave to cowards?  Let us arouse the people; hitherto we have depended
+too much upon the nobles.  Let us collect our whole force, and march upon
+this new city, while the soldiers of Spain are employed in their new
+profession of architects and builders.  Hear me, O God and prophet of the
+Moslem! hear one who never was forsworn!  If, Moors of Granada, ye adopt
+my counsel, I cannot promise ye victory, but I promise ye never to live
+without it: I promise ye, at least, your independence--for the dead know
+no chains!  If we cannot live, let us so die that we may leave to
+remotest ages a glory that shall be more durable than kingdoms.
+King of Granada! this is the counsel of Muza Ben Abil Gazan."
+
+The prince ceased.  But he, whose faintest word had once breathed fire
+into the dullest, had now poured out his spirit upon frigid and lifeless
+matter.  No man answered--no man moved.
+
+Boabdil alone, clinging to the shadow of hope, turned at last towards the
+audience.
+
+"Warriors and sages!" he said, "as Muza's counsel is your king's desire,
+say but the word, and, ere the hour-glass shed its last sand, the blast
+of our trumpet shall be ringing through the Vivarrambla."
+
+"O king! fight not against the will of fate--God is great!" replied the
+chief of the alfaquis.
+
+"Alas!" said Abdelmelic, "if the voice of Muza and your own falls thus
+coldly upon us, how can ye stir the breadless and heartless multitude?"
+
+"Is such your general thought and your general will?" said Boabdil.
+
+An universal murmur answered, "Yes!"
+
+"Go then, Abdelmelic;" resumed the ill-starred king; "go with yon
+Spaniards to the Christian camp, and bring us back the best terms you can
+obtain.  The crown has passed from the head of El Zogoybi; Fate sets her
+seal upon my brow.  Unfortunate was the commencement of my reign--
+unfortunate its end.  Break up the divan."
+
+The words of Boabdil moved and penetrated an audience, never till then
+so alive to his gentle qualities, his learned wisdom, and his natural
+valour.  Many flung themselves at his feet, with tears and sighs; and the
+crowd gathered round to touch the hem of his robe.
+
+Muza gazed at them in deep disdain, with folded arms and heaving breast.
+
+"Women, not men!" he exclaimed, "ye weep, as if ye had not blood still
+left to shed!  Ye are reconciled to the loss of liberty, because ye are
+told ye shall lose nothing else.  Fools and dupes!  I see, from the spot
+where my spirit stands above ye, the dark and dismal future to which ye
+are crawling on your knees: bondage and rapine--the violence of lawless
+lust--the persecution of hostile faith--your gold wrung from ye by
+torture--your national name rooted from the soil.  Bear this, and
+remember me!  Farewell, Boabdil! you I pity not; for your gardens have
+yet a poison, and your armories a sword.  Farewell, nobles and santons of
+Granada!  I quit my country while it is yet free."
+
+Scarcely had he ceased, ere he had disappeared from the hall.  It was as
+the parting genius of Granada!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ADVENTURE OF THE SOLITARY HORSEMAN.
+
+It was a burning and sultry noon, when, through a small valley, skirted
+by rugged and precipitous hills, at the distance of several leagues from
+Granada, a horseman, in complete armour, wound his solitary way;  His
+mail was black and unadorned; on his vizor waved no plume.  But there was
+something in his carriage and mien, and the singular beauty of his coal-
+black steed, which appeared to indicate a higher rank than the absence of
+page and squire, and the plainness of his accoutrements, would have
+denoted to a careless eye.  He rode very slowly; and his steed, with the
+licence of a spoiled favourite, often halted lazily in his sultry path,
+as a tuft of herbage, or the bough of some overhanging tree, offered its
+temptation.  At length, as he thus paused, a noise was heard in a copse
+that clothed the descent of a steep mountain; and the horse started
+suddenly back, forcing the traveller from his reverie.  He looked
+mechanically upward, and beheld the figure of a man bounding through the
+trees, with rapid and irregular steps.  It was a form that suited well
+the silence and solitude of the spot; and might have passed for one of
+those stern recluses--half hermit, half soldier--who, in the earlier
+crusades, fixed their wild homes amidst the sands and caves of Palestine.
+The stranger supported his steps by a long staff.  His hair and beard
+hung long and matted over his broad shoulders.  A rusted mail, once
+splendid with arabesque enrichments, protected his breast; but the loose
+gown--a sort of tartan, which descended below the cuirass--was rent and
+tattered, and his feet bare; in his girdle was a short curved cimiter, a
+knife or dagger, and a parchment roll, clasped and bound with iron.
+
+As the horseman gazed at this abrupt intruder on the solitude, his frame
+quivered with emotion; and, raising himself to his full height, he called
+aloud, "Fiend or santon--whatsoever thou art--what seekest thou in these
+lonely places, far from the king thy counsels deluded, and the city
+betrayed by thy false prophecies and unhallowed charms?"
+
+"Ha!" cried Almamen, for it was indeed the Israelite; "by thy black
+charger, and the tone of thy haughty voice, I know the hero of Granada.
+Rather, Muza Ben Abil Gazan, why art thou absent from the last hold of
+the Moorish empire?"
+
+"Dost thou pretend to read the future, and art thou blind to the present?
+Granada has capitulated to the Spaniard.  Alone I have left a land of
+slaves, and shall seek, in our ancestral Africa, some spot where the
+footstep of the misbeliever hath not trodden."
+
+"The fate of one bigotry is, then, sealed," said Almamen, gloomily; "but
+that which succeeds it is yet more dark."
+
+"Dog!" cried Muza, couching his lance, "what art thou that thus
+blasphemest?"
+
+"A Jew!" replied Almamen, in a voice of thunder, and drawing his cimiter:
+"a despised and despising Jew!  Ask you more?  I am the son of a race of
+kings.  I was the worst enemy of the Moors till I found the Nazarene more
+hateful than the Moslem; and then even Muza himself was not their more
+renowned champion.  Come on, if thou wilt--man to man: I defy thee"
+
+"No, no," muttered Muza, sinking his lance; "thy mail is rusted with the
+blood of the Spaniard, and this arm cannot smite the slayer of the
+Christian.  Part we in peace."
+
+"Hold, prince!" said Almamen, in an altered voice: "is thy country the
+sole thing dear to thee?  Has the smile of woman never stolen beneath
+thine armour?  Has thy heart never beat for softer meetings than the
+encounter of a foe?"
+
+"Am I human, and a Moor?" returned Muza.  "For once you divine aright;
+and, could thy spells bestow on these eyes but one more sight of the last
+treasure left to me on earth, I should be as credulous of thy sorcery as
+Boabdil."
+
+"Thou lovest her still, then--this Leila?"
+
+"Dark necromancer, hast thou read my secret? and knowest thou the name of
+my beloved one?  Ah! let me believe thee indeed wise, and reveal to me
+the spot of earth which holds the delight of my soul!  Yes," continued
+the Moor, with increased emotion, and throwing up his vizor, as if for
+air--"yes; Allah forgive me! but, when all was lost at Granada, I had
+still one consolation in leaving my fated birthplace: I had licence to
+search for Leila; I had the hope to secure to my wanderings in distant
+lands one to whose glance the eyes of the houris would be dim.  But I
+waste words.  Tell me where is Leila, and conduct me to her feet!"
+
+"Moslem, I will lead thee to her," answered Almamen, gazing on the prince
+with an expression of strange and fearful exultation in his dark eyes: "I
+will lead thee to her-follow me.  It is only yesternight that I learned
+the walls that confined her; and from that hour to this have I journeyed
+over mountain and desert, without rest or food."
+
+"Yet what is she to thee?" asked Muza, suspiciously.
+
+"Thou shalt learn full soon.  Let us on."
+
+So saying, Almamen sprang forward with a vigour which the excitement of
+his mind supplied to the exhaustion of his body.  Muza wonderingly pushed
+on his charger, and endeavoured to draw his mysterious guide into
+conversation: but Almamen scarcely heeded him.  And when he broke from
+his gloomy silence, it was but in incoherent and brief exclamations,
+often in a tongue foreign to the ear of his companion.  The hardy Moor,
+though steeled against the superstitions of his race, less by the
+philosophy of the learned than the contempt of the brave, felt an awe
+gather over him as he glanced, from the giant rocks and lonely valleys,
+to the unearthly aspect and glittering eyes of the reputed sorcerer; and
+more than once he muttered such verses of the Koran as were esteemed by
+his countrymen the counterspell to the machinations of the evil genii.
+
+It might be an hour that they had thus journeyed together, when Almamen
+paused abruptly.  "I am wearied," said he, faintly; "and, though time
+presses, I fear that my strength will fail me."
+
+"Mount, then, behind me," returned the Moor, after some natural
+hesitation: "Jew though thou art, I will brave the contamination for the
+sake of Leila."
+
+"Moor!" cried the Hebrew, fiercely, "the contamination would be mine.
+Things of yesterday, as thy Prophet and thy creed are, thou canst not
+sound the unfathomable loathing which each heart faithful to the Ancient
+of Days feels for such as thou and thine."
+
+"Now, by the Kaaba!" said Muza, and his brow became dark, "another such
+word and the hoofs of my steed shall trample the breath of blasphemy from
+thy body."
+
+"I would defy thee to the death," answered Almamen, disdainfully; "but I
+reserve the bravest of the Moors to witness a deed worthy of the
+descendant of Jephtha.  But hist!  I hear hoofs."
+
+Muza listened; and his sharp ear caught a distinct ring upon the hard and
+rocky soil.  He turned round and saw Almamen gliding away through the
+thick underwood, until the branches concealed his form.  Presently, a
+curve in the path brought in view a Spanish cavalier, mounted on an
+Andalusian jennet: the horseman was gaily singing one of the popular
+ballads of the time; and, as it related to the feats of the Spaniards
+against the Moors, Muza's haughty blood was already stirred, and his
+moustache quivered on his lip.  "I will change the air," muttered the
+Moslem, grasping his lance, when, as the thought crossed him, he beheld
+the Spaniard suddenly reel in his saddle and lay prostrate on the ground.
+In the same instant Almamen had darted from his hiding-place, seized the
+steed of the cavalier, mounted, and, ere Muza recovered from his
+surprise, was by the side of the Moor.
+
+"By what harm," said Muza, curbing his barb, "didst thou fell the
+Spaniard--seemingly without a blow?"
+
+"As David felled Goliath--by the pebble and the sling," answered Almamen,
+carelessly.  "Now, then, spur forward, if thou art eager to see thy
+Leila."
+
+The horsemen dashed over the body of the stunned and insensible Spaniard.
+Tree and mountain glided by; gradually the valley vanished, and a thick
+forest loomed upon their path.  Still they made on, though the interlaced
+boughs and the ruggedness of the footing somewhat obstructed their way;
+until, as the sun began slowly to decline, they entered a broad and
+circular space, round which trees of the eldest growth spread their
+motionless and shadowy boughs.  In the midmost sward was a rude and
+antique stone, resembling the altar of some barbarous and departed creed.
+Here Almamen abruptly halted, and muttered inaudibly to himself.
+
+"What moves thee, dark stranger?" said the Moor; "and why dost thou
+mutter and gaze on space?"
+
+Almamen answered not, but dismounted, hung his bridle to a branch of a
+scathed and riven elm, and advanced alone into the middle of the space.
+"Dread and prophetic power that art within me!" said the Hebrew, aloud,--
+"this, then, is the spot that, by dream and vision, thou hast foretold me
+wherein to consummate and record the vow that shall sever from the spirit
+the last weakness of the flesh.  Night after night hast thou brought
+before mine eyes, in darkness and in slumber, the solemn solitude that I
+now survey.  Be it so!  I am prepared!"
+
+Thus speaking, he retired for a few moments into the wood: collected in
+his arms the dry leaves and withered branches which cumbered the desolate
+clay, and placed the fuel upon the altar.  Then, turning to the East, and
+raising his hands he exclaimed, "Lo! upon this altar, once worshipped,
+perchance, by the heathen savage, the last bold spirit of thy fallen and
+scattered race dedicates, O Ineffable One! that precious offering Thou
+didst demand from a sire of old.  Accept the sacrifice!"
+
+As the Hebrew ended his adjuration he drew a phial from his bosom, and
+sprinkled a few drops upon the arid fuel.  A pale blue flame suddenly
+leaped up; and, as it lighted the haggard but earnest countenance of the
+Israelite, Muza felt his Moorish blood congeal in his veins, and
+shuddered, though he scarce knew why.  Almamen, with his dagger, severed
+from his head one of his long locks, and cast it upon the flame.  He
+watched it until it was consumed; and then, with a stifled cry, fell upon
+the earth in a dead swoon.  The Moor hastened to raise him; he chafed his
+hands and temples; he unbuckled the vest upon his bosom; he forgot that
+his comrade was a sorcerer and a Jew, so much had the agony of that
+excitement moved his sympathy.
+
+It was not till several minutes had elapsed that Almamen, with a deep-
+drawn sigh, recovered from his swoon.  "Ah, beloved one! bride of my
+heart!" he murmured, "was it for this that thou didst commend to me the
+only pledge of our youthful love?  Forgive me!  I restore her to the
+earth, untainted by the Gentile."  He closed his eyes again, and a strong
+convulsion shook his frame.  It passed; and he rose as a man from a
+fearful dream, composed, and almost as it were refreshed, by the terrors
+he had undergone.  The last glimmer of the ghastly light was dying away
+upon that ancient altar, and a low wind crept sighing through the trees.
+
+"Mount, prince," said Almamen, calmly, but averting his eyes from the
+altar; "we shall have no more delays."
+
+"Wilt thou not explain thy incantation?" asked Muza; "or is it, as my
+reason tells me, but the mummery of a juggler?"
+
+"Alas! alas!" answered Almamen, in a sad and altered tone, "thou wilt
+soon know all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE SACRIFICE.
+
+The sun was now sinking slowly through those masses of purple cloud which
+belong to Iberian skies; when, emerging from the forest, the travellers
+saw before them a small and lovely plain, cultivated like a garden.  Rows
+of orange and citron trees were backed by the dark green foliage of
+vines; and these again found a barrier in girdling copses of chestnut,
+oak, and the deeper verdure of pines: while, far to the horizon, rose the
+distant and dim outline of the mountain range, scarcely distinguishable
+from the mellow colourings of the heaven.  Through this charming spot
+went a slender and sparkling torrent, that collected its waters in a
+circular basin, over which the rose and orange hung their contrasted
+blossoms.  On a gentle eminence above this plain, or garden, rose the
+spires of a convent: and, though it was still clear daylight, the long
+and pointed lattices were illumined within; and, as the horsemen cast
+their eyes upon the pile, the sound of the holy chorus--made more sweet
+and solemn from its own indistinctness, from the quiet of the hour, from
+the sudden and sequestered loveliness of that spot, suiting so well the
+ideal calm of the conventual life--rolled its music through the odorous
+and lucent air.
+
+But that scene and that sound, so calculated to soothe and harmonise the
+thought, seemed to arouse Almamen into agony and passion.  He smote his
+breast with his clenched hand; and, shrieking, rather than exclaiming,
+"God of my fathers! have I come too late?" buried his spurs to the rowels
+in the sides of his panting steed.  Along the sward, through the fragrant
+shrubs, athwart the pebbly and shallow torrent, up the ascent to the
+convent, sped the Israelite.  Muza, wondering and half reluctant,
+followed at a little distance.  Clearer and nearer came the voices of the
+choir; broader and redder glowed the tapers from the Gothic casements:
+the porch of the convent chapel was reached; the Hebrew sprang from his
+horse.  A small group of the peasants dependent on the convent loitered
+reverently round the threshold; pushing through them, as one frantic,
+Almamen entered the chapel and disappeared.
+
+A minute elapsed.  Muza was at the door; but the Moor paused
+irresolutely, ere he dismounted.  "What is the ceremony?" he asked of the
+peasants.
+
+"A nun is about to take the vows," answered one of them.
+
+A cry of alarm, of indignation, of terror, was heard within.  Muza no
+longer delayed: he gave his steed to the bystanders, pushed aside the
+heavy curtain that screened the threshold and was within the chapel.
+
+By the altar gathered a confused and disordered group--the sisterhood,
+with their abbess.  Round the consecrated rail flocked the spectators,
+breathless and amazed.  Conspicuous above the rest, on the elevation of
+the holy place, stood Almamen with his drawn dagger in his right hand,
+his left arm clasped around the form of a novice, whose dress, not yet
+replaced by the serge, bespoke her the sister fated to the veil; and, on
+the opposite side of that sister, one hand on her shoulder, the other
+rearing on high the sacred crucifix, stood a stern, commanding form, in
+the white robes of the Dominican order; it was Tomas de Torquemada.
+
+"Avaunt, Almamen!" were the first words which reached Muza's ear as he
+stood, unnoticed, in the middle of the aisle: "here thy sorcery and thine
+arts cannot avail thee.  Release the devoted one of God!"
+
+"She is mine! she is my daughter!  I claim her from thee as a father, in
+the name of the great Sire of Man!"
+
+"Seize the sorcerer! seize him!" exclaimed the Inquisitor, as, with a
+sudden movement, Almamen cleared his way through the scattered and
+dismayed group, and stood with his daughter in his arms, on the first
+step of the consecrated platform.
+
+But not a foot stirred--not a hand was raised.  The epithet bestowed on
+the intruder had only breathed a supernatural terror into the audience;
+and they would have sooner rushed upon a tiger in his lair, than on the
+lifted dagger and savage aspect of that grim stranger.
+
+"Oh, my father!" then said a low and faltering voice, that startled Muza
+as a voice from the grave--"wrestle not against the decrees of Heaven.
+Thy daughter is not compelled to her solemn choice.  Humbly, but
+devotedly, a convert to the Christian creed, her only wish on earth
+is to take the consecrated and eternal vow."
+
+"Ha!" groaned the Hebrew, suddenly relaxing his hold, as his daughter
+fell on her knees before him, "then have I indeed been told, as I have
+foreseen, the worst.  The veil is rent--the spirit hath left the temple.
+Thy beauty is desecrated; thy form is but unhallowed clay.  Dog!" he
+cried, more fiercely, glaring round upon the unmoved face of the
+Inquisitor, "this is thy work: but thou shalt not triumph.  Here, by
+thine own shrine, I spit at and defy thee, as once before, amidst the
+tortures of thy inhuman court.  Thus--thus--thus--Almamen the Jew
+delivers the last of his house from the curse of Galilee!"
+
+"Hold, murderer!" cried a voice of thunder; and an armed man burst
+through the crowd and stood upon the platform.  It was too late: thrice
+the blade of the Hebrew had passed through that innocent breast; thrice
+was it reddened with that virgin blood.  Leila fell in the arms of her
+lover; her dim eyes rested upon his countenance, as it shone upon her,
+beneath his lifted vizor-a faint and tender smile played upon her lips--
+Leila was no more.
+
+One hasty glance Almamen cast upon his victim, and then, with a wild
+laugh that woke every echo in the dreary aisles, he leaped from the
+place.  Brandishing his bloody weapon above his head, he dashed through
+the coward crowd; and, ere even the startled Dominican had found a voice,
+the tramp of his headlong steed rang upon the air; an instant--and all
+was silent.
+
+But over the murdered girl leaned the Moor, as yet incredulous of her
+death; her head still unshorn of its purple tresses, pillowed on his lap
+--her icy hand clasped in his, and her blood weltering fast over his
+armour.  None disturbed him; for, habited as the knights of Christendom,
+none suspected his faith; and all, even the Dominican, felt a thrill of
+sympathy at his distress.  How he came hither, with what object,--what
+hope, their thoughts were too much locked in pity to conjecture.  There,
+voiceless and motionless, bent the Moor, until one of the monks
+approached and felt the pulse, to ascertain if life was, indeed, utterly
+gone.
+
+The Moor at first waved him haughtily away; but, when he divined the
+monk's purpose, suffered him in silence to take the beloved hand.  He
+fixed on him his dark and imploring eyes; and when the father dropped the
+hand, and, gently shaking his head, turned away, a deep and agonising
+groan was all that the audience heard from that heart in which the last
+iron of fate had entered.  Passionately he kissed the brow, the cheeks,
+the lips of the hushed and angel face, and rose from the spot.
+
+"What dost thou here? and what knowest thou of yon murderous enemy of God
+and man?" asked the Dominican, approaching.
+
+Muza made no reply, as he stalked slowly through the chapel.  The
+audience was touched to sudden tears.  "Forbear!" said they, almost with
+one accord, to the harsh Inquisitor; "he hath no voice to answer thee."
+
+And thus, amidst the oppressive grief and sympathy of the Christian
+throng, the unknown Paynim reached the door, mounted his steed, and as he
+turned once more and cast a hurried glance upon the fatal pile, the
+bystanders saw the large tears rolling down his swarthy cheeks.
+
+Slowly that coal-black charger wound down the hillock, crossed the quiet
+and lovely garden, and vanished amidst the forest.  And never was known,
+to Moor or Christian, the future fate of the hero of Granada.  Whether he
+reached in safety the shores of his ancestral Africa, and carved out new
+fortunes and a new name; or whether death, by disease or strife,
+terminated obscurely his glorious and brief career, mystery--deep and
+unpenetrated, even by the fancies of the thousand bards who have
+consecrated his deeds--wraps in everlasting shadow the destinies of Muza
+Ben Abil Gazan, from that hour, when the setting sun threw its parting
+ray over his stately form and his ebon barb, disappearing amidst the
+breathless shadows of the forest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE RETURN--THE RIOT--THE TREACHERY--AND THE DEATH.
+
+It was the eve of the fatal day on which Granada was to be delivered to
+the Spaniards, and in that subterranean vault beneath the house of
+Almamen, before described, three elders of the Jewish persuasion were
+met.
+
+"Trusty and well-beloved Ximen," cried one, a wealthy and usurious
+merchant, with a twinkling and humid eye, and a sleek and unctuous
+aspect, which did not, however, suffice to disguise something fierce and
+crafty in his low brow and pinched lips--"trusty and well-beloved Ximen,"
+said this Jew--"truly thou hast served us well, in yielding to thy
+persecuted brethren this secret shelter.  Here, indeed, may the heathen
+search for us in vain!  Verily, my veins grow warm again; and thy servant
+hungereth, and hath thirst."
+
+"Eat, Isaac--eat; yonder are viands prepared for thee; eat, and spare
+not.  And thou, Elias--wilt thou not draw near the board? the wine is old
+and precious, and will revive thee."
+
+"Ashes and hyssop--hyssop and ashes, are food and drink for me," answered
+Elias, with passionate bitterness; "they have rased my house--they have
+burned my granaries--they have molten down my gold.  I am a ruined man!"
+
+"Nay," said Ximen, who gazed at him with a malevolent eye--for so utterly
+had years and sorrows mixed with gall even the one kindlier sympathy he
+possessed, that he could not resist an inward chuckle over the very
+afflictions he relieved, and the very impotence he protected--"nay,
+Elias, thou hast wealth yet left in the seaport towns sufficient to buy
+up half Granada."
+
+"The Nazarene will seize it all!" cried Elias; "I see it already in his
+grasp!"
+
+"Nay, thinkest thou so?--and wherefore?" asked Ximen, startled into
+sincere, because selfish anxiety.
+
+"Mark me!  Under licence of the truce, I went, last night, to the
+Christian camp: I had an interview with the Christian king; and when he
+heard my name and faith, his very beard curled with ire.  'Hound of
+Belial!' he roared forth, 'has not thy comrade carrion, the sorcerer
+Almamen, sufficiently deceived and insulted the majesty of Spain?  For
+his sake, ye shall have no quarter.  Tarry here another instant, and thy
+corpse shall be swinging to the winds!  Go, and count over thy misgotten
+wealth; just census shall be taken of it; and if thou defraudest our holy
+impost by one piece of copper, thou shalt sup with Dives!'  Such was my
+mission, and mine answer.  I return home to see the ashes of mine house!
+Woe is me!"
+
+"And this we owe to Almamen, the pretended Jew!" cried Isaac, from his
+solitary but not idle place at the board.  "I would this knife were at
+his false throat!" growled Elias, clutching his poniard with his long
+bony fingers.
+
+"No chance of that," muttered Ximen; "he will return no more to Granada.
+The vulture and the worm have divided his carcass between them ere this;
+and (he added inly with a hideous smile) his house and his gold have
+fallen into the hands of old childless Ximen."
+
+"This is a strange and fearful vault," said Isaac, quaffing a large
+goblet of the hot wine of the Vega; "here might the Witch of Endor have
+raised the dead.  Yon door--whither doth it lead?"
+
+"Through passages none that I know of, save my master, hath trodden,"
+answered Ximen.  "I have heard that they reach even to the Alhambra.
+Come, worthy Elias! thy form trembles with the cold: take this wine."
+
+"Hist!" said Elias, shaking from limb to limb; "our pursuers are upon us
+--I hear a step!"
+
+As he spoke, the door to which Isaac had pointed slowly opened and
+Almamen entered the vault.
+
+Had, indeed, a new Witch of Endor conjured up the dead, the apparition
+would not more have startled and appalled that goodly trio.  Elias,
+griping his knife, retreated to the farthest end of the vault.  Isaac
+dropped the goblet he was about to drain, and fell upon his knees.
+Ximen, alone, growing, if possible, a shade more ghastly--retained
+something of self-possession, as he muttered to himself--"He lives!  and
+his gold is not mine!  Curse him!"
+
+Seemingly unconscious of the strange guests his sanctuary shrouded,
+Almamen stalked on, like a man walking in his sleep.
+
+Ximen roused himself--softly unbarred the door which admitted to the
+upper apartments, and motioned to his comrades to avail themselves of the
+opening, but as Isaac--the first to accept the hint--crept across,
+Almamen fixed upon him his terrible eye, and, appearing suddenly to awake
+to consciousness, shouted out, "Thou miscreant, Ximen! whom hast thou
+admitted to the secrets of thy lord?  Close the door--these men must
+die!"
+
+"Mighty master!" said Ximen, calmly, "is thy servant to blame that he
+believed the rumour that declared thy death?  These men are of our holy
+faith, whom I have snatched from the violence of the sacrilegious and
+maddened mob.  No spot but this seemed safe from the popular frenzy."
+"Are ye Jews?" said Almamen.  "Ah, yes!  I know ye now--things of the
+market-place and bazaar'.  Oh, ye are Jews, indeed!  Go, go!  Leave me!"
+
+Waiting no further licence, the three vanished; but, ere he quitted the
+vault, Elias turned back his scowling countenance on Almamen (who had
+sunk again into an absorbed meditation) with a glance of vindictive ire
+--Almamen was alone.
+
+In less than a quarter of an hour Ximen returned to seek his master; but
+the place was again deserted.
+
+It was midnight in the streets of Granada--midnight, but not repose.
+The multitude, roused into one of their paroyxsms of wrath and sorrow,
+by the reflection that the morrow was indeed the day of their subjection
+to the Christian foe, poured forth through the streets to the number of
+twenty thousand.  It was a wild and stormy night; those formidable gusts
+of wind, which sometimes sweep in sudden winter from the snows of the
+Sierra Nevada, howled through the tossing groves, and along the winding
+streets. But the tempest seemed to heighten, as if by the sympathy of
+the elements, the popular storm and whirlwind.  Brandishing arms and
+torches, and gaunt with hunger, the dark forms of the frantic Moors
+seemed like ghouls or spectres, rather than mortal men; as, apparently
+without an object, save that of venting their own disquietude, or
+exciting the fears of earth, they swept through the desolate city.
+
+In the broad space of the Vivarrambla the crowd halted, irresolute in all
+else, but resolved at least that something for Granada should yet be
+done.  They were for the most armed in their Moorish fashion; but they
+were wholly without leaders: not a noble, a magistrate, an officer, would
+have dreamed of the hopeless enterprise of violating the truce with
+Ferdinand.  It was a mere popular tumult--the madness of a mob;--but not
+the less formidable, for it was an Eastern mob, and a mob with sword and
+shaft, with buckler and mail--the mob by which oriental empires have been
+built and overthrown!  There, in the splendid space that had witnessed
+the games and tournaments of that Arab and African chivalry--there, where
+for many a lustrum kings had reviewed devoted and conquering armies--
+assembled those desperate men; the loud winds agitating their tossing
+torches that struggled against the moonless night.
+
+"Let us storm the Alhambra!" cried one of the band: "let us seize
+Boabdil, and place him in the midst of us; let us rush against the
+Christians, buried in their proud repose!"
+
+"Lelilies, Lelilies!--the Keys and the Crescent!" shouted the mob.
+
+The shout died: and at the verge of the space was suddenly heard a once
+familiar and ever-thrilling voice.
+
+The Moors who heard it turned round in amaze and awe; and beheld, raised
+upon the stone upon which the criers or heralds had been wont to utter
+the royal proclamations, the form of Almamen, the santon, whom they had
+deemed already with the dead.
+
+"Moors and people of Granada!" he said, in a solemn but hollow voice, "I
+am with ye still.  Your monarch and your heroes have deserted ye, but I
+am with ye to the last!  Go not to the Alhambra: the fort is
+impenetrable--the guard faithful.  Night will be wasted, and day bring
+upon you the Christian army.  March to the gates; pour along the Vega;
+descend at once upon the foe!"
+
+He spoke, and drew forth his sabre; it gleamed in the torchlight--the
+Moors bowed their heads in fanatic reverence--the santon sprang from the
+stone, and passed into the centre of the crowd.
+
+Then, once more, arose joyful shouts.  The multitude had found a leader
+worthy of their enthusiasm; and in regular order, they formed themselves
+rapidly, and swept down the narrow streets.
+
+Swelled by several scattered groups of desultory marauders (the ruffians
+and refuse of the city), the infidel numbers were now but a few furlongs
+from the great gate, whence they had been wont to issue on the foe.  And
+then, perhaps, had the Moors passed these gates and reached the Christian
+encampment, lulled, as it was, in security and sleep, that wild army of
+twenty thousand desperate men might have saved Granada; and Spain might
+at this day possess the only civilised empire which the faith of Mohammed
+ever founded.
+
+But the evil star of Boabdil prevailed.  The news of the insurrection in
+the city reached him.  Two aged men from the lower city arrived at the
+Alhambra--demanded and obtained an audience; and the effect of that
+interview was instantaneous upon Boabdil.  In the popular frenzy he saw
+only a justifiable excuse for the Christian king to break the conditions
+of the treaty, rase the city, and exterminate the inhabitants.  Touched
+by a generous compassion for his subjects, and actuated no less by a high
+sense of kingly honor, which led him to preserve a truce solemnly sworn
+to, he once more mounted his cream-coloured charger, with the two elders
+who had sought him by his side; and, at the head of his guard, rode from
+the Alhambra.  The sound of his trumpets, the tramp of his steeds, the
+voice of his heralds, simultaneously reached the multitude; and, ere they
+had leisure to decide their course, the king was in the midst of them.
+
+"What madness is this, O my people?" cried Boabdil, spurring into the
+midst of the throng,--"whither would ye go?"
+
+"Against the Christian!--against the Goth!" shouted a thousand voices.
+"Lead us on!  The santon is risen from the dead, and will ride by thy
+right hand!"
+
+"Alas!" resumed the king, "ye would march against the Christian king!
+Remember that our hostages are in his power: remember that he will desire
+no better excuse to level Granada with the dust, and put you and your
+children to the sword.  We have made such treaty as never yet was made
+between foe and foe.  Your lives, laws, wealth--all are saved.  Nothing
+is lost, save the crown of Boabdil.  I am the only sufferer.  So be it.
+My evil star brought on you these evil destinies: without me, you may
+revive, and be once more a nation.  Yield to fate to-day, and you may
+grasp her proudest awards to-morrow.  To succumb is not to be subdued.
+But go forth against the Christians, and if ye win one battle, it is but
+to incur a more terrible war; if you lose, it is not honourable
+capitulation, but certain extermination, to which you rush!  Be
+persuaded, and listen once again to your king."
+
+The crowd were moved, were softened, were half-convinced.  They turned,
+in silence, towards their santon; and Almamen did not shrink from the
+appeal; but stood forth, confronting the king.
+
+"King of Granada!" he cried aloud, "behold thy friend--thy prophet!
+Lo! I assure you victory!"
+
+"Hold!" interrupted Boabdil; "thou hast deceived and betrayed me too
+long!  Moors! know ye this pretended santon?  He is of no Moslem creed.
+He is a hound of Israel who would sell you to the best bidder.  Slay
+him!"
+
+"Ha!" cried Almamen, "and who is my accuser?"
+
+"Thy servant-behold him!"  At these words the royal guards lifted their
+torches, and the glare fell redly on the death-like features of Ximen.
+
+"Light of the world!  there be other Jews that know him," said the
+traitor.
+
+"Will ye suffer a Jew to lead ye, O race of the Prophet?" cried the king.
+
+The crowd stood confused and bewildered.  Almamen felt his hour was come;
+he remained silent, his arms folded, his brow erect.
+
+"Be there any of the tribes of Moisa amongst the crowd?" cried Boabdil,
+pursuing his advantage; "if so, let them approach and testify what they
+know."  Forth came--not from the crowd, but from amongst Boabdil's train,
+a well-known Israelite.
+
+"We disown this man of blood and fraud," said Elias, bowing to the earth;
+"but he was of our creed."
+
+"Speak, false santon! art thou dumb?" cried the king.
+
+"A curse light on thee, dull fool!" cried Almamen, fiercely.  "What
+matters who the instrument that would have restored to thee thy throne?
+Yes!  I, who have ruled thy councils, who have led thine armies, I am of
+the race of Joshua and of Samuel--and the Lord of Hosts is the God of
+Almamen!"
+
+A shudder ran through that mighty multitude: but the looks, the mien, and
+the voice of the man awed them, and not a weapon was raised against him.
+He might, even then, have passed scathless through the crowd; he might
+have borne to other climes his burning passions and his torturing woes:
+but his care for life was past; he desired but to curse his dupes, and to
+die.  He paused, looked round and burst into a laugh of such bitter and
+haughty scorn, as the tempted of earth may hear in the halls below from
+the lips of Eblis.
+
+"Yes," he exclaimed, "such I am!  I have been your idol and your lord.
+I may be your victim, but in death I am your vanquisher.  Christian and
+Moslem alike my foe, I would have trampled upon both.  But the Christian,
+wiser than you, gave me smooth words; and I would have sold ye to his
+power; wickeder than you, he deceived me; and I would have crushed him
+that I might have continued to deceive and rule the puppets that ye call
+your chiefs.  But they for whom I toiled, and laboured, and sinned--for
+whom I surrendered peace and ease, yea, and a daughter's person and a
+daughter's blood--they have betrayed me to your hands, and the Curse of
+Old rests with them evermore--Amen!  The disguise is rent: Almamen, the
+santon, is the son of Issachar the Jew!"
+
+More might he have said, but the spell was broken.  With a ferocious
+yell, those living waves of the multitude rushed over the stern fanatic;
+six cimiters passed through him, and he fell not: at the seventh he was a
+corpse.  Trodden in the clay--then whirled aloft--limb torn from limb,--
+ere a man could have drawn breath nine times, scarce a vestige of the
+human form was left to the mangled and bloody clay.
+
+One victim sufficed to slake the wrath of the crowd.  They gathered like
+wild beasts whose hunger is appeased, around their monarch, who in vain
+had endeavored to stay their summary revenge, and who now, pale and
+breathless, shrank from the passions he had excited.  He faltered forth a
+few words of remonstrance and exhortation, turned the head of his steed,
+and took his way to his palace.
+
+The crowd dispersed, but not yet to their homes.  The crime of Almamen
+worked against his whole race.  Some rushed to the Jews' quarter, which
+they set on fire; others to the lonely mansion of Almamen.
+
+Ximen, on quitting the king, had been before the mob.  Not anticipating
+such an effect of the popular rage, he had hastened to the house, which
+he now deemed at length his own.  He had just reached the treasury of his
+dead lord--he had just feasted his eyes on the massive ingots and
+glittering gems; in the lust of his heart he had just cried aloud, "And
+these are mine!" when he heard the roar of the mob below the wall,--when
+he saw the glare of their torches against the casement.  It was in vain
+that he shrieked aloud, "I am the man that exposed the Jew!" the wild
+wind scattered his words over a deafened audience.  Driven from his
+chamber by the smoke and flame, afraid to venture forth amongst the
+crowd, the miser loaded himself with the most precious of the store: he
+descended the steps, he bent his way to the secret vault, when suddenly
+the floor, pierced by the flames, crashed under him, and the fire rushed
+up in a fiercer and more rapid volume, as the death-shriek broke through
+that lurid shroud.
+
+Such were the principal events of the last night of the Moorish dynasty
+in Granada.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE END.
+
+Day dawned upon Granada: the populace had sought their homes, and a
+profound quiet wrapped the streets, save where, from the fires committed
+in the late tumult, was yet heard the crash of roofs or the crackle of
+the light and fragrant timber employed in those pavilions of the summer.
+The manner in which the mansions of Granada were built, each separated
+from the other by extensive gardens, fortunately prevented the flames
+from extending.  But the inhabitants cared so little for the hazard, that
+not a single guard remained to watch the result.  Now and then some
+miserable forms in the Jewish gown might be seen cowering by the ruins of
+their house, like the souls that, according to Plato, watched in charnels
+over their own mouldering bodies.  Day dawned, and the beams of the
+winter sun, smiling away the clouds of the past night, played cheerily on
+the murmuring waves of the Xenil and the Darro.
+
+Alone, upon a balcony commanding that stately landscape, stood the last
+of the Moorish kings.  He had sought to bring to his aid all the lessons
+of the philosophy he had cultivated.  "What are we," thought the musing
+prince, "that we should fill the world with ourselves--we kings!  Earth
+resounds with the crash of my falling throne: on the ear of races unborn
+the echo will live prolonged.  But what have I lost?--nothing that was
+necessary to my happiness, my repose; nothing save the source of all my
+wretchedness, the Marah of my life!  Shall I less enjoy heaven and earth,
+or thought or action, or man's more material luxuries of food or sleep--
+the common and the cheap desires of all?  Arouse thee, then, O heart
+within me! many and deep emotions of sorrow or of joy are yet left to
+break the monotony of existence."
+
+He paused; and, at the distance, his eyes fell upon the lonely minarets
+of the distant and deserted palace of Muza Ben Abil Gazan.
+
+"Thou went right, then," resumed the king--"thou wert right, brave
+spirit, not to pity Boabdil: but not because death was in his power;
+man's soul is greater than his fortunes, and there is majesty in a life
+that towers above the ruins that fall around its path."  He turned away,
+and his cheek suddenly grew pale, for he heard in the courts below the
+tread of hoofs, the bustle of preparation: it was the hour for his
+departure.  His philosophy vanished: he groaned aloud, and re-entered the
+chamber just as his vizier and the chief of his guard broke upon his
+solitude.
+
+The old vizier attempted to speak, but his voice failed him.
+
+"It is time, then, to depart," said Boabdil, with calmness; "let it be
+so: render up the palace and the fortress, and join thy friend, no more
+thy monarch, in his new home."
+
+He stayed not for reply: he hurried on, descended to the court, flung
+himself on his barb, and, with a small and saddened train, passed through
+the gate which we yet survey, by a blackened and crumbling tower
+overgrown with vines and ivy; thence, amidst gardens, now appertaining to
+the convent of the victor faith, he took his mournful and unwitnessed
+way.  When he came to the middle of the hill that rises above those
+gardens, the steel of the Spanish armour gleamed upon him as the
+detachment sent to occupy the palace marched over the summit in steady
+order and profound silence.
+
+At the head of this vanguard rode, upon a snow-white palfrey, the Bishop
+of Avila, followed by a long train of barefooted monks.  They halted as
+Boabdil approached, and the grave bishop saluted him with the air of one
+who addresses an infidel and an inferior.  With the quick sense of
+dignity common to the great, and yet more to the fallen, Boabdil felt,
+but resented not, the pride of the ecclesiastic.  "Go, Christian," said
+he, mildly, "the gates of the Alhambra are open, and Allah has bestowed
+the palace and the city upon your king: may his virtues atone the faults
+of Boabdil!"  So saying, and waiting no answer, he rode on, without
+looking to the right or left.  The Spaniards also pursued their way.  The
+sun had fairly risen above the mountains, when Boabdil and his train
+beheld, from the eminence on which they were, the whole armament of
+Spain; and at the same moment, louder than the tramp of horse, or the
+flash of arms, was heard distinctly the solemn chant of Te Deum, which
+preceded the blaze of the unfurled and lofty standards.  Boabdil, himself
+still silent, heard the groans and exclamations of his train; he turned
+to cheer or chide them, and then saw, from his own watch-tower, with the
+sun shining full upon its pure and dazzling surface, the silver cross of
+Spain.  His Alhambra was already in the hands of the foe, while, beside
+that badge of the holy war, waved the gay and flaunting flag of St.
+Iago, the canonised Mars of the chivalry of Spain.
+
+At that sight the king's voice died within him: he gave the rein to his
+barb, impatient to close the fatal ceremonial, and did not slacken his
+speed till almost within bow-shot of the first ranks of the army.  Never
+had Christian war assumed a more splendid or imposing aspect.  Far as the
+eye could reach extended the glittering and gorgeous lines of that goodly
+power, bristling with sunlit spears and blazoned banners; while beside
+murmured, and glowed, and danced, the silver and laughing Xenil, careless
+what lord should possess, for his little day, the banks that bloomed by
+its everlasting course.  By a small mosque halted the flower of the army.
+Surrounded by the arch-priests of that mighty hierarchy, the peers and
+princes of a court that rivalled the Rolands of Charlemagne, was seen the
+kingly form of Ferdinand himself, with Isabel at his right hand and the
+highborn dames of Spain, relieving, with their gay colours and sparkling
+gems, the sterner splendour of the crested helmet and polished mail.
+
+Within sight of the royal group, Boabdil halted--composed his aspect so
+as best to conceal his soul,--and, a little in advance of his scanty
+train, but never, in mien and majesty, more a king, the son of Abdallah
+met his haughty conqueror.
+
+At the sight of his princely countenance and golden hair, his comely and
+commanding beauty, made more touching by youth, a thrill of compassionate
+admiration ran through that assembly of the brave and fair.  Ferdinand
+and Isabel slowly advanced to meet their late rival--their new subject;
+and, as Boabdil would have dismounted, the Spanish king place his hand
+upon his shoulder.  "Brother and prince," said he, "forget thy sorrows;
+and may our friendship hereafter console thee for reverses against which
+thou hast contended as a hero and a king-resisting man, but resigned at
+length to God!"
+
+Boabdil did not affect to return this bitter, but unintentional mockery
+of compliment.  He bowed his head, and remained a moment silent; then,
+motioning to his train, four of his officers approached, and kneeling
+beside Ferdinand, proffered to him, upon a silver buckler, the keys of
+the city.
+
+"O king!" then said Boabdil, "accept the keys of the last hold which has
+resisted the arms of Spain!  The empire of the Moslem is no more.  Thine
+are the city and the people of Granada: yielding to thy prowess, they yet
+confide in thy mercy."
+
+"They do well," said the king; "our promises shall not be broken.  But,
+since we know the gallantry of Moorish cavaliers, not to us, but to
+gentler hands, shall the keys of Granada be surrendered."
+
+Thus saying, Ferdinand gave the keys to Isabel, who would have addressed
+some soothing flatteries to Boabdil: but the emotion and excitement were
+too much for her compassionate heart, heroine and queen though she was;
+and, when she lifted her eyes upon the calm and pale features of the
+fallen monarch, the tears gushed from them irresistibly, and her voice
+died in murmurs.  A faint flush overspread the features of Boabdil, and
+there was a momentary pause of embarrassment which the Moor was the first
+to break.
+
+"Fair queen," said he, with mournful and pathetic dignity; "thou canst
+read the heart that thy generous sympathy touches and subdues: this is
+thy last, nor least glorious, conquest.  But I detain ye: let not my
+aspect cloud your triumph.  Suffer me to say farewell."
+
+"May we not hint at the blessed possibility of conversion?" whispered the
+pious queen through her tears to her royal consort.
+
+"Not now--not now, by St. Iago!" returned Ferdinand, quickly, and in the
+same tone, willing himself to conclude a painful conference.  He then
+added, aloud, "Go, my brother, and fair fortune with you!  Forget the
+past."
+
+Boabdil smiled bitterly, saluted the royal pair with profound and silent
+reverence, and rode slowly on, leaving the army below, as he ascended the
+path that led to his new principality beyond the Alpuxarras.  As the
+trees snatched the Moorish cavalcade from the view of the king, Ferdinand
+ordered the army to recommence its march; and trumpet and cymbal
+presently sent their music to the ear of the Moslems.
+
+Boabdil spurred on at full speed till his panting charger halted at the
+little village where his mother, his slaves, and his faithful Amine (sent
+on before) awaited him.  Joining these, he proceeded without delay upon
+his melancholy path.
+
+They ascended that eminence which is the pass into the Alpuxarras.  From
+its height, the vale, the rivers, the spires, the towers of Granada,
+broke gloriously upon the view of the little band.  They halted,
+mechanically and abruptly; every eye was turned to the beloved scene.
+The proud shame of baffled warriors, the tender memories of home--of
+childhood--of fatherland, swelled every heart, and gushed from every eye.
+Suddenly, the distant boom of artillery broke from the citadel and rolled
+along the sunlit valley and crystal river.  A universal wail burst from
+the exiles! it smote--it overpowered the heart of the ill-starred king,
+in vain seeking to wrap himself in Eastern pride or stoical philosophy.
+The tears gushed from his eyes, and he covered his face with his hands.
+
+Then said his haughty mother, gazing at him with hard and disdainful
+eyes, in that unjust and memorable reproach which history has preserved
+--"Ay, weep like a woman over what thou couldst not defend like a man!"
+
+Boabdil raised his countenance, with indignant majesty, when he felt his
+hand tenderly clasped, and, turning round, saw Amine by his side.
+
+"Heed her not! heed her not, Boabdil!" said the slave; "never didst thou
+seem to me more noble than in that sorrow.  Thou wert a hero for thy
+throne; but feel still, O light of mine eyes, a woman for thy people!"
+
+"God is great!" said Boabdil; "and God comforts me still!  Thy lips;
+which never flattered me in my power, have no reproach for me in my
+affliction!"
+
+He said, and smiled upon Amine--it was her hour of triumph.
+
+The band wound slowly on through the solitary defiles: and that place
+where the king wept, and the woman soothed, is still called "El, ultimo
+suspiro del Moro,--THE LAST SIGH OF THE MOOR!"
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LEILA BY LYTTON, V5 ***
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