1 files changed, 6820 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/b201w10.txt b/old/b201w10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e118492
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/b201w10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6820 @@
+Project Gutenberg EBook, Leila by Edward Bulwer Lytton, Complete
+#201 in our series by Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
+donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
+
+
+
+Title: Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Complete
+
+Author: Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+Release Date: January 2006  [EBook #9761]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 9, 2003]
+
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+
+
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, LEILA, BY LYTTON ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger  [widger@cecomet.net]
+
+
+
+
+
+                             LEILA
+
+                              OR,
+
+                     THE SIEGE OF GRANADA
+
+                              BY
+
+                     EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
+
+
+                           Complete
+
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE ENCHANTER AND THE WARRIOR.
+
+It was the summer of the year 1491, and the armies of Ferdinand and
+Isabel invested the city of Granada.
+
+The night was not far advanced; and the moon, which broke through the
+transparent air of Andalusia, shone calmly over the immense and murmuring
+encampment of the Spanish foe, and touched with a hazy light the snow-
+capped summits of the Sierra Nevada, contrasting the verdure and
+luxuriance which no devastation of man could utterly sweep from the
+beautiful vale below.
+
+In the streets of the Moorish city many a group still lingered.  Some, as
+if unconscious of the beleaguering war without, were listening in quiet
+indolence to the strings of the Moorish lute, or the lively tale of an
+Arabian improrvisatore; others were conversing with such eager and
+animated gestures, as no ordinary excitement could wring from the stately
+calm habitual to every oriental people.  But the more public places in
+which gathered these different groups, only the more impressively
+heightened the desolate and solemn repose that brooded over the rest of
+the city.
+
+At this time, a man, with downcast eyes, and arms folded within the
+sweeping gown which descended to his feet, was seen passing through the
+streets, alone, and apparently unobservent of all around him.  Yet this
+indifference was by no means shared by the struggling crowds through
+which, from time to time, he musingly swept.
+
+"God is great!" said one man; "it is the Enchanter Almamen."
+
+"He hath locked up the manhood of Boabdil el Chico with the key of his
+spells," quoth another, stroking his beard; "I would curse him, if I
+dared."
+
+"But they say that he hath promised that when man fails, the genii will
+fight for Granada," observed a third, doubtingly.
+
+"Allah Akbar! what is, is! what shall be, shall be!" said a fourth, with
+all the solemn sagacity of a prophet.  Whatever their feelings, whether
+of awe or execration, terror or hope, each group gave way as Almamen
+passed, and hushed the murmurs not intended for his ear.  Passing through
+the Zacatin (the street which traversed the Great Bazaar), the reputed
+enchanter ascended a narrow and winding street, and arrived at last
+before the walls that encircled the palace and fortress of the Alhambra.
+
+The sentry at the gate saluted and admitted him in silence; and in a few
+moments his form was lost in the solitude of groves, amidst which, at
+frequent openings, the spray of Arabian fountains glittered in the
+moonlight; while, above, rose the castled heights of the Alhambra; and on
+the right those Vermilion Towers, whose origin veils itself in the
+furthest ages of Phoenician enterprise.
+
+Almamen paused, and surveyed the scene.  "Was Aden more lovely?" he
+muttered; "and shall so fair a spot be trodden by the victor Nazerene?
+What matters? creed chases creed--race, race--until time comes back to
+its starting-place, and beholds the reign restored to the eldest faith
+and the eldest tribe.  The horn of our strength shall be exalted."
+
+At these thoughts the seer relapsed into silence, and gazed long and
+intently upon the stars, as, more numerous and brilliant with every step
+of the advancing night, their rays broke on the playful waters, and
+tinged with silver the various and breathless foliage.  So earnest was
+his gaze, and so absorbed his thoughts, that he did not perceive the
+approach of a Moor, whose glittering weapons and snow-white turban, rich
+with emeralds, cast a gleam through the wood.
+
+The new comer was above the common size of his race, generally small and
+spare--but without attaining the lofty stature and large proportions of
+the more redoubted of the warriors of Spain.  But in his presence and
+mien there was something, which, in the haughtiest conclave of Christian
+chivalry, would have seemed to tower and command.  He walked with a step
+at once light and stately, as if it spurned the earth; and in the
+carriage of the small erect head and stag-like throat, there was that
+undefinable and imposing dignity, which accords so well with our
+conception of a heroic lineage, and a noble though imperious spirit.  The
+stranger approached Almamen, and paused abruptly when within a few steps
+of the enchanter.  He gazed upon him in silence for some moments; and
+when at length he spoke it was with a cold and sarcastic tone.
+
+"Pretender to the dark secrets," said he, "is it in the stars that thou
+art reading those destinies of men and nations, which the Prophet wrought
+by the chieftain's brain and the soldier's arm?"
+
+"Prince," replied Almamen, turning slowly, and recognising the intruder
+on his meditations, "I was but considering how many revolutions, which
+have shaken earth to its centre, those orbs have witnessed,
+unsympathising and unchanged."
+
+"Unsympathising!" repeated the Moor--"yet thou believest in their effect
+upon the earth?"
+
+"You wrong me," answered Almamen, with a slight smile, "you confound your
+servant with that vain race, the astrologers."
+
+"I deemed astrology a part of the science of the two angels, Harut and
+Marut."
+
+     [The science of magic.  It was taught by the Angels named in the
+     text; for which offence they are still supposed to be confined to
+     the ancient Babel.  There they may yet be consulted, though they are
+     rarely seen.--Yallal'odir Yahya.
+     --SALE'S Koran.]
+
+"Possibly; but I know not that science, though I have wandered at
+midnight by the ancient Babel."
+
+"Fame lies to us, then," answered the Moor, with some surprise.
+
+"Fame never made pretence to truth," said Almamen, calmly, and proceeding
+on his way.  "Allah be with you, prince!  I seek the king."
+
+"Stay!  I have just quitted his presence, and left him, I trust, with
+thoughts worthy of the sovereign of Granada, which I would not have
+disturbed by a stranger, a man whose arms are not spear nor shield."
+
+"Noble Muza," returned Almamen, "fear not that my voice will weaken the
+inspirations which thine hath breathed into the breast of Boabdil.  Alas!
+if my counsel were heeded, thou wouldst hear the warriors of Granada talk
+less of Muza, and more of the king.  But Fate, or Allah, hath placed upon
+the throne of a tottering dynasty, one who, though brave, is weak--
+though, wise, a dreamer; and you suspect the adviser, when you find the
+influence of nature on the advised.  Is this just?"
+
+Muza gazed long and sternly on the face of Almamen; then, putting his
+hand gently on the enchanter's shoulder, he said--
+
+"Stranger, if thou playest us false, think that this arm hath cloven the
+casque of many a foe, and will not spare the turban of a traitor!"
+
+"And think thou, proud prince!" returned Almamen, unquailing, "that I
+answer alone to Allah for my motives, and that against man my deeds I can
+defend!"
+
+With these words, the enchanter drew his long robe round him, and
+disappeared amidst the foliage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE KING WITHIN HIS PALACE.
+
+In one of those apartments, the luxury of which is known only to the
+inhabitants of a genial climate (half chamber and half grotto), reclined
+a young Moor, in a thoughtful and musing attitude.
+
+The ceiling of cedar-wood, glowing with gold and azure, was supported by
+slender shafts, of the whitest alabaster, between which were open
+arcades, light and graceful as the arched vineyards of Italy, and wrought
+in that delicate filagree-work common to the Arabian architecture:
+through these arcades was seen at intervals the lapsing fall of waters,
+lighted by alabaster lamps; and their tinkling music sounded with a fresh
+and regular murmur upon the ear.  The whole of one side of this apartment
+was open to a broad and extensive balcony, which overhung the banks of
+the winding and moonlit Darro; and in the clearness of the soft night
+might be distinctly seen the undulating hills, the woods, and orange-
+groves, which still form the unrivalled landscapes of Granada.
+
+The pavement was spread with ottomans and couches of the richest azure,
+prodigally enriched with quaint designs in broideries of gold and silver;
+and over that on which the Moor reclined, facing the open balcony, were
+suspended on a pillar the round shield, the light javelin, and the
+curving cimiter, of Moorish warfare.  So studded were these arms with
+jewels of rare cost, that they might alone have sufficed to indicate the
+rank of the evident owner, even if his own gorgeous vestments had not
+betrayed it.  An open manuscript, on a silver table, lay unread before
+the Moor: as, leaning his face upon his hand, he looked with abstracted
+eyes along the mountain summits dimly distinguished from the cloudless
+and far horizon.
+
+No one could have gazed without a vague emotion of interest, mixed with
+melancholy, upon the countenance of the inmate of that luxurious chamber.
+
+Its beauty was singularly stamped with a grave and stately sadness, which
+was made still more impressive by its air of youth and the unwonted
+fairness of the complexion: unlike the attributes of the Moorish race,
+the hair and curling beard were of a deep golden colour; and on the broad
+forehead and in the large eyes, was that settled and contemplative
+mildness which rarely softens the swart lineaments of the fiery children
+of the sun.  Such was the personal appearance of Boabdil el Chico, the
+last of the Moorish dynasty in Spain.
+
+"These scrolls of Arabian learning," said Boabdil to himself, "what do
+they teach? to despise wealth and power, to hold the heart to be the true
+empire.  This, then, is wisdom.  Yet, if I follow these maxims, am I
+wise? alas! the whole world would call me a driveller and a madman.  Thus
+is it ever; the wisdom of the Intellect fills us with precepts which it
+is the wisdom of Action to despise.  O Holy Prophet! what fools men would
+be, if their knavery did not eclipse their folly!"
+
+The young king listlessly threw himself back on his cushions as he
+uttered these words, too philosophical for a king whose crown sate so
+loosely on his brow.
+
+After a few moments of thought that appeared to dissatisfy and disquiet
+him, Boabdil again turned impatiently round "My soul wants the bath of
+music," said he; "these journeys into a pathless realm have wearied it,
+and the streams of sound supple and relax the travailed pilgrim."
+
+He clapped his hands, and from one of the arcades a boy, hitherto
+invisible, started into sight; at a slight and scarce perceptible sign
+from the king the boy again vanished, and in a few moments afterwards,
+glancing through the fairy pillars, and by the glittering waterfalls,
+came the small and twinkling feet of the maids of Araby.  As, with their
+transparent tunics and white arms, they gleamed, without an echo, through
+that cool and voluptuous chamber, they might well have seemed the Peris
+of the eastern magic, summoned to beguile the sated leisure of a youthful
+Solomon.  With them came a maiden of more exquisite beauty, though
+smaller stature, than the rest, bearing the light Moorish lute; and a
+faint and languid smile broke over the beautiful face of Boabdil, as his
+eyes rested upon her graceful form and the dark yet glowing lustre of her
+oriental countenance.  She alone approached the king, timidly kissed his
+hand, and then, joining her comrades, commenced the following song, to
+the air and very words of which the feet of the dancing-girls kept time,
+while with the chorus rang the silver bells of the musical instrument
+which each of the dancers carried.
+
+                       AMINE'S SONG.
+
+               I.
+               Softly, oh, softly glide,
+               Gentle Music, thou silver tide,
+               Bearing, the lulled air along,
+               This leaf from the Rose of Song!
+               To its port in his soul let it float,
+               The frail, but the fragrant boat,
+               Bear it, soft Air, along!
+
+               II.
+               With the burthen of sound we are laden,
+               Like the bells on the trees of Aden,*
+               When they thrill with a tinkling tone
+               At the Wind from the Holy Throne,
+               Hark, as we move around,
+               We shake off the buds of sound;
+               Thy presence, Beloved, is Aden.
+
+               III.
+               Sweet chime that I hear and wake
+               I would, for my lov'd one's sake,
+               That I were a sound like thee,
+               To the depths of his heart to flee.
+               If my breath had his senses blest;
+               If my voice in his heart could rest;
+               What pleasure to die like thee!
+
+     *[The Mohammedans believe that musical bells hang on the trees of
+     Paradise, and are put in motion by a wind from the throne of God.]
+
+
+The music ceased; the dancers remained motionless in their graceful
+postures, as if arrested into statues of alabaster; and the young
+songstress cast herself on a cushion at the feet of the monarch, and
+looked up fondly, but silently, into his yet melancholy eyes,--when a
+man, whose entrance had not been noticed, was seen to stand within the
+chamber.
+
+He was about the middle stature,--lean, muscular, and strongly though
+sparely built.  A plain black robe, something in the fashion of the
+Armenian gown, hung long and loosely over a tunic of bright scarlet,
+girdled by a broad belt, from the centre of which was suspended a small
+golden key, while at the left side appeared the jewelled hilt of a
+crooked dagger.  His features were cast in a larger and grander mould
+than was common among the Moors of Spain; the forehead was broad,
+massive, and singularly high, and the dark eyes of unusual size and
+brilliancy; his beard, short, black, and glossy, curled upward, and
+concealed all the lower part of the face, save a firm, compressed, and
+resolute expression in the lips, which were large and full; the nose was
+high, aquiline, and well-shaped; and the whole character of the head
+(which was, for symmetry, on too large and gigantic a scale as
+proportioned to the form) was indicative of extraordinary energy and
+power.  At the first glance, the stranger might have seemed scarce on the
+borders of middle age; but, on a more careful examination, the deep lines
+and wrinkles, marked on the forehead and round the eyes, betrayed a more
+advanced period of life.  With arms folded on his breast, he stood by the
+side of the king, waiting in silence the moment when his presence should
+be perceived.
+
+He did not wait long; the eyes and gesture of the girl nestled at the
+feet of Boabdil drew the king's attention to the spot where the stranger
+stood: his eye brightened when it fell upon him.
+
+"Almamen," cried Boabdil, eagerly, "you are welcome."  As he spoke, he
+motioned to the dancing-girls to withdraw.  "May I not rest?  O core of
+my heart, thy bird is in its home," murmured the songstress at the king's
+feet.
+
+"Sweet Amine," answered Boabdil, tenderly smoothing down her ringlets as
+he bent to kiss her brow, "you should witness only my hours of delight.
+Toil and business have nought with thee; I will join thee ere yet the
+nightingale hymns his last music to the moon."  Amine sighed, rose, and
+vanished with her companions.
+
+"My friend," said the king, when alone with Almamen, "your counsels often
+soothe me into quiet, yet in such hours quiet is a crime.  But what do?--
+how struggle?--how act?  Alas! at the hour of his birth, rightly did they
+affix to the name of Boabdil, the epithet of _El Zogoybi_. [The Unlucky].
+Misfortune set upon my brow her dark and fated stamp ere yet my lips
+could shape a prayer against her power.  My fierce father, whose frown
+was as the frown of Azrael, hated me in my cradle; in my youth my name
+was invoked by rebels against my will; imprisoned by my father, with the
+poison-bowl or the dagger hourly before my eyes, I was saved only by the
+artifice of my mother.  When age and infirmity broke the iron sceptre of
+the king, my claims to the throne were set aside, and my uncle, El Zagal,
+usurped my birthright.  Amidst open war and secret treason I wrestled for
+my crown; and now, the sole sovereign of Granada, when, as I fondly
+imagined, my uncle had lost all claim on the affections of my people by
+succumbing to the Christian king, and accepting a fief under his
+dominion, I find that the very crime of El Zagal is fixed upon me by my
+unhappy subjects--that they deem he would not have yielded but for my
+supineness.  At the moment of my delivery from my rival, I am received
+with execration by my subjects, and, driven into this my fortress of the
+Alhambra, dare not venture to head my armies, or to face my people; yet
+am I called weak and irresolute, when strength and courage are forbid me.
+And as the water glides from yonder rock, that hath no power to retain
+it, I see the tide of empire welling from my hands."
+
+The young king spoke warmly and bitterly; and, in the irritation of his
+thoughts, strode, while he spoke, with rapid and irregular strides along
+the chamber.  Almamen marked his emotion with an eye and lip of rigid
+composure.
+
+"Light of the faithful," said he, when Boabdil had concluded, "the powers
+above never doom man to perpetual sorrow, nor perpetual joy: the cloud
+and the sunshine are alike essential to the heaven of our destinies; and
+if thou hast suffered in thy youth, thou hast exhausted the calamities of
+fate, and thy manhood will be glorious, and thine age serene."
+
+"Thou speakest as if the armies of Ferdinand were not already around my
+walls," said Boabdil, impatiently.
+
+"The armies of Sennacherib were as mighty," answered Almamen.
+
+"Wise seer," returned the king, in a tone half sarcastic and half solemn,
+"we, the Mussulmans of Spain, are not the blind fanatics of the Eastern
+world.  On us have fallen the lights of philosophy and science; and if
+the more clear-sighted among us yet outwardly reverence the forms and
+fables worshipped by the multitude, it is from the wisdom of policy, not
+the folly of belief.  Talk not to me, then, of thine examples of the
+ancient and elder creeds: the agents of God for this world are now, at
+least, in men, not angels; and if I wait till Ferdinand share the destiny
+of Sennacherib, I wait only till the Standard of the Cross wave above the
+Vermilion Towers."
+
+"Yet," said Almamen, "while my lord the king rejects the fanaticism of
+belief, doth he reject the fanaticism of persecution?  You disbelieve the
+stories of the Hebrews; yet you suffer the Hebrews themselves, that
+ancient and kindred Arabian race, to be ground to the dust, condemned and
+tortured by your judges, your informers, your soldiers, and your
+subjects."
+
+"The base misers! they deserve their fate," answered Boabdil, loftily.
+"Gold is their god, and the market-place their country; amidst the tears
+and groans of nations, they sympathise only with the rise and fall of
+trade; and, the thieves of the universe! while their hand is against
+every man's coffer, why wonder that they provoke the hand of every man
+against their throats?  Worse than the tribe of Hanifa, who eat their god
+only in time of famine;--[The tribe of Hanifa worshipped a lump of
+dough]--the race of Moisa--[Moses]--would sell the Seven Heavens for the
+dent on the back of the date-stone."--[A proverb used in the Koran,
+signifying the smallest possible trifle].
+
+"Your laws leave them no ambition but that of avarice," replied Almamen;
+"and as the plant will crook and distort its trunk, to raise its head
+through every obstacle to the sun, so the mind of man twists and perverts
+itself, if legitimate openings are denied it, to find its natural element
+in the gale of power, or the sunshine of esteem.  These Hebrews were not
+traffickers and misers in their own sacred land when they routed your
+ancestors, the Arab armies of old; and gnawed the flesh from their bones
+in famine, rather than yield a weaker city than Granada to a mightier
+force than the holiday lords of Spain.  Let this pass.  My lord rejects
+the belief in the agencies of the angels; doth he still retain belief in
+the wisdom of mortal men?"
+
+"Yes!" returned Boabdil, quickly; "for of the one I know nought; of the
+other, mine own senses can be the judge.  Almamen, my fiery kinsman,
+Muza, hath this evening been with me.  He hath urged me to reject the
+fears of my people, which chain my panting spirit within these walls; he
+hath urged me to gird on yonder shield and cimiter, and to appear in the
+Vivarrambla, at the head of the nobles of Granada.  My heart leaps high
+at the thought! and if I cannot live, at least I will die--a king!"
+
+"It is nobly spoken," said Almamen, coldly.
+
+"You approve, then, my design?"
+
+"The friends of the king cannot approve the ambition of the king to die."
+
+"Ha!" said Boabdil, in an altered voice, "thou thinkest, then, that I am
+doomed to perish in this struggle?"
+
+"As the hour shall be chosen, wilt thou fall or triumph."
+
+"And that hour?"
+
+"Is not yet come."
+
+"Dost thou read the hour in the stars?"
+
+"Let Moorish seers cultivate that frantic credulity: thy servant sees but
+in the stars worlds mightier than this little earth, whose light would
+neither wane nor wink, if earth itself were swept from the infinities of
+space."
+
+"Mysterious man!" said Boabdil; "whence, then, is thy power?--whence thy
+knowledge of the future?"
+
+Almamen approached the king, as he now stood by the open balcony.
+
+"Behold!" said he, pointing to the waters of the Darro--"yonder stream is
+of an element in which man cannot live nor breathe: above, in the thin
+and impalpable air, our steps cannot find a footing, the armies of all
+earth cannot build an empire.  And yet, by the exercise of a little art,
+the fishes and the birds, the inhabitants of the air and the water,
+minister to our most humble wants, the most common of our enjoyments; so
+it is with the true science of enchantment.  Thinkest thou that, while
+the petty surface of the world is crowded with living things, there is no
+life in the vast centre within the earth, and the immense ether that
+surrounds it?  As the fisherman snares his prey, as the fowler entraps
+the bird, so, by the art and genius of our human mind, we may thrall and
+command the subtler beings of realms and elements which our material
+bodies cannot enter--our gross senses cannot survey.  This, then, is my
+lore.  Of other worlds know I nought; but of the things of this world,
+whether men, or, as your legends term them, ghouls and genii, I have
+learned something.  To the future, I myself am blind; but I can invoke
+and conjure up those whose eyes are more piercing, whose natures are more
+gifted."
+
+"Prove to me thy power," said Boabdil, awed less by the words than by the
+thrilling voice and the impressive aspect of the enchanter.
+
+"Is not the king's will my law?" answered Almamen; "be his will obeyed.
+To-morrow night I await thee."
+
+"Where?"
+
+Almamen paused a moment, and then whispered a sentence in the king's ear:
+Boabdil started, and turned pale.
+
+"A fearful spot!"
+
+"So is the Alhambra itself, great Boabdil; while Ferdinand is without the
+walls and Muza within the city."
+
+"Muza!  Darest thou mistrust my bravest warrior?"
+
+"What wise king will trust the idol of the king's army?  Did Boabdil fall
+to-morrow by a chance javelin, in the field, whom would the nobles and
+the warriors place upon his throne?  Doth it require an enchanter's lore
+to whisper to thy heart the answer in the name of 'Muza'?"
+
+"Oh, wretched state! oh, miserable king!" exclaimed Boabdil, in a tone of
+great anguish.  "I never had a father.  I have now no people; a little
+while, and I shall have no country.  Am I never to have a friend?"
+
+"A friend! what king ever had?" returned Almamen, drily.
+
+"Away, man--away!" cried Boabdil, as the impatient spirit of his rank and
+race shot dangerous fire from his eyes; "your cold and bloodless wisdom
+freezes up all the veins of my manhood!  Glory, confidence, human
+sympathy, and feeling--your counsels annihilate them all.  Leave me!
+I would be alone."
+
+"We meet to-morrow, at midnight, mighty Boabdil," said Almamen, with his
+usual unmoved and passionless tones.  "May the king live for ever."
+
+The king turned; but his monitor had already disappeared.  He went as he
+came--noiseless and sudden as a ghost.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE LOVERS.
+
+When Muza parted from Almamen, he bent his steps towards the hill that
+rises opposite the ascent crowned with the towers of the Alhambra; the
+sides and summit of which eminence were tenanted by the luxurious
+population of the city.  He selected the more private and secluded paths;
+and, half way up the hill, arrived, at last, before a low wall of
+considerable extent, which girded the gardens of some wealthier
+inhabitant of the city.  He looked long and anxiously round; all was
+solitary; nor was the stillness broken, save as an occasional breeze,
+from the snowy heights of the Sierra Nevada, rustled the fragrant leaves
+of the citron and pomegranate; or as the silver tinkling of waterfalls
+chimed melodiously within the gardens.  The Moor's heart beat high: a
+moment more, and he had scaled the wall; and found himself upon a green
+sward, variegated by the rich colours of many a sleeping flower, and
+shaded by groves and alleys of luxuriant foliage and golden fruits.
+
+It was not long before he stood beside a house that seemed of a
+construction anterior to the Moorish dynasty.  It was built over low
+cloisters formed by heavy and timeworn pillars, concealed, for the most
+part by a profusion of roses and creeping shrubs: the lattices above the
+cloisters opened upon large gilded balconies, the super-addition of
+Moriscan taste.  In one only of the casements a lamp was visible; the
+rest of the mansion was dark, as if, save in that chamber, sleep kept
+watch over the inmates.  It was to this window that the Moor stole; and,
+after a moment's pause, he murmured rather than sang, so low and
+whispered was his voice, the following simple verses, slightly varied
+from an old Arabian poet:--
+
+               Light of my soul, arise, arise!
+               Thy sister lights are in the skies;
+                         We want thine eyes,
+                         Thy joyous eyes;
+               The Night is mourning for thine eyes!
+               The sacred verse is on my sword,
+               But on my heart thy name
+               The words on each alike adored;
+               The truth of each the same,
+               The same!--alas! too well I feel
+               The heart is truer than the steel!
+               Light of my soul! upon me shine;
+               Night wakes her stars to envy mine.
+                         Those eyes of thine,
+                         Wild eyes of thine,
+               What stars are like those eyes of thine?
+
+As he concluded, the lattice softly opened; and a female form appeared on
+the balcony.
+
+"Ah, Leila!" said the  Moor, "I see thee, and I am blessed!"
+
+"Hush!" answered Leila; "speak low, nor tarry long I fear that our
+interviews are suspected; and this," she added in a trembling voice,
+"may perhaps be the last time we shall meet."
+
+"Holy Prophet!" exclaimed Muza, passionately, "what do I hear?  Why this
+mystery? why cannot I learn thine origin, thy rank, thy parents?  Think
+you, beautiful Leila, that Granada holds a rouse lofty enough to disdain
+the alliance with Muza Ben Abil Gazan? and oh!" he added (sinking the
+haughty tones of his voice into accents of the softest tenderness),
+"if not too high to scorn me, what should war against our loves and our
+bridals?  For worn equally on my heart were the flower of thy sweet self,
+whether the mountain top or the valley gave birth to the odour and the
+bloom."
+
+"Alas!" answered Leila, weeping, "the mystery thou complainest of is as
+dark to myself as thee.  How often have I told thee that I know nothing
+of my birth or childish fortunes, save a dim memory of a more distant and
+burning clime; where, amidst sands and wastes, springs the everlasting
+cedar, and the camel grazes on stunted herbage withering in the fiery
+air?  Then, it seemed to me that I had a mother: fond eyes looked on me,
+and soft songs hushed me into sleep."
+
+"Thy mother's soul has passed into mine," said the Moor, tenderly.
+
+Leila continued:--"Borne hither, I passed from childhood into youth
+within these walls.  Slaves ministered to my slightest wish; and those
+who have seen both state and poverty, which I have not, tell me that
+treasures and splendour, that might glad a monarch, are prodigalised
+around me: but of ties and kindred know I little: my father, a stern and
+silent man, visits me but rarely--sometimes months pass, and I see him
+not; but I feel he loves me; and, till I knew thee, Muza, my brightest
+hours were in listening to the footsteps and flying to the arms of that
+solitary friend."
+
+"Know you not his name?"
+
+"Nor, I nor any one of the household; save perhaps Ximen, the chief of
+the slaves, an old and withered man, whose very eye chills me into fear
+and silence."
+
+"Strange!" said the Moor, musingly; "yet why think you our love is
+discovered, or can be thwarted?"
+
+"Hush!  Ximen sought me this day: 'Maiden,' said he, 'men's footsteps
+have been tracked within the gardens; if your sire know this, you will
+have looked your last on Granada.  Learn,' he added, in a softer voice,
+as he saw me tremble, 'that permission were easier given to thee to wed
+the wild tiger than to mate with the loftiest noble of Morisca!  Beware!'
+He spoke, and left me.  O Muza!" she continued, passionately wringing her
+hands, "my heart sinks within me, and omen and doom rise dark before my
+sight!"
+
+"By my father's head, these obstacles but fire my love, and I would scale
+to thy possession, though every step in the ladder were the corpses of a
+hundred foes!"
+
+Scarcely had the fiery and high-souled Moor uttered his boast, than, from
+some unseen hand amidst the groves, a javelin whirred past him, and as
+the air it raised came sharp upon his cheek, half buried its quivering
+shaft in the trunk of a tree behind him.
+
+"Fly, fly, and save thyself!  O God, protect him!" cried Leila; and she
+vanished within the chamber.
+
+The Moor did not wait the result of a deadlier aim; he turned; yet, in
+the instinct of his fierce nature, not from, but against, the foe; his
+drawn scimitar in his hand, the half-suppressed cry of wrath trembling on
+his lips, he sprang forward in the direction the javelin had sped.  With
+eyes accustomed to the ambuscades of Moorish warfare, he searched
+eagerly, yet warily through the dark and sighing foliage.  No sign of
+life met his gaze; and at length, grimly and reluctantly, he retraced his
+steps, and quitted the demesnes; but just as he had cleared the wall, a
+voice--low, but sharp and shrill--came from the gardens.
+
+"Thou art spared," it said, "but, haply, for a more miserable doom!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
+
+The chamber into which Leila retreated bore out the character she had
+given of the interior of her home.  The fashion of its ornament and
+decoration was foreign to that adopted by the Moors of Granada.  It had a
+more massive and, if we may use the term, Egyptian gorgeousness.  The
+walls were covered with the stuffs of the East, stiff with gold,
+embroidered upon ground of the deepest purple; strange characters,
+apparently in some foreign tongue, were wrought in the tesselated
+cornices and on the heavy ceiling, which was supported by square pillars,
+round which were twisted serpents of gold and enamel, with eyes to which
+enormous emeralds gave a green and lifelike glare: various scrolls and
+musical instruments lay scattered upon marble tables: and a solitary lamp
+of burnished silver cast a dim and subdued light around the chamber.  The
+effect of the whole, though splendid, was gloomy, strange, and
+oppressive, and rather suited to the thick and cave-like architecture
+which of old protected the inhabitants of Thebes and Memphis from the
+rays of the African sun, than to the transparent heaven and light
+pavilions of the graceful orientals of Granada.
+
+Leila stood within this chamber, pale and breathless, with her lips
+apart, her hands clasped, her very soul in her ears; nor was it possible
+to conceive a more perfect ideal of some delicate and brilliant Peri,
+captured in the palace of a hostile and gloomy Genius.  Her form was of
+the lightest shape consistent with the roundness of womanly beauty; and
+there was something in it of that elastic and fawnlike grace which a
+sculptor seeks to embody in his dreams of a being more aerial than those
+of earth.  Her luxuriant hair was dark indeed, but a purple and glossy
+hue redeemed it from that heaviness of shade too common in the tresses of
+the Asiatics; and her complexion, naturally pale but clear and lustrous,
+would have been deemed fair even in the north.  Her features, slightly
+aquiline, were formed in the rarest mould of symmetry, and her full rich
+lips disclosed teeth that might have shamed the pearl.  But the chief
+charm of that exquisite countenance was in an expression of softness and
+purity, and intellectual sentiment, that seldom accompanies that cast of
+loveliness, and was wholly foreign to the voluptuous and dreamy languor
+of Moorish maidens; Leila had been educated, and the statue had received
+a soul.
+
+After a few minutes of intense suspense, she again stole to the lattice,
+gently unclosed it, and looked forth.  Far, through an opening amidst the
+trees, she descried for a single moment the erect and stately figure of
+her lover, darkening the moonshine on the sward, as now, quitting his
+fruitless search, he turned his lingering gaze towards the lattice of his
+beloved: the thick and interlacing foliage quickly hid him from her eyes;
+but Leila had seen enough--she turned within, and said, as grateful tears
+trickled clown her cheeks, and she sank on her knees upon the piled
+cushions of the chamber: "God of my fathers!  I bless Thee--he is safe!"
+
+"And yet (she added, as a painful thought crossed her), how may I pray
+for him? we kneel not to the same Divinity; and I have been taught to
+loathe and shudder at his creed!  Alas! how will this end?  Fatal was the
+hour when he first beheld me in yonder gardens; more fatal still the hour
+in which he crossed the barrier, and told Leila that she was beloved by
+the hero whose arm was the shelter, whose name is the blessing, of
+Granada.  Ah, me!  Ah, me!"
+
+The young maiden covered her face with her hands, and sank into a
+passionate reverie, broken only by her sobs.  Some time had passed in
+this undisturbed indulgence of her grief, when the arras was gently put
+aside, and a man, of remarkable garb and mien, advanced into the chamber,
+pausing as he beheld her dejected attitude, and gazing on her with a look
+on which pity and tenderness seemed to struggle against habitual severity
+and sternness.
+
+"Leila!" said the intruder.
+
+Leila started, and and a deep blush suffused her countenance; she dashed
+the tears from her eyes, and came forward with a vain attempt to smile.
+
+"My father, welcome!"
+
+The stranger seated himself on the cushions, and motioned Leila to his
+side.
+
+"These tears are fresh upon thy cheek," said he, gravely; "they are the
+witness of thy race! our daughters are born to weep, and our sons to
+groan! ashes are on the head of the mighty, and the Fountains of the
+Beautiful run with gall!  Oh that we could but struggle--that we could
+but dare--that we could raise up, our heads, and unite against the
+bondage of the evil doer!  It may not be--but one man shall avenge a
+nation!"
+
+The dark face of Leila's father, well fitted to express powerful emotion,
+became terrible in its wrath and passion; his brow and lip worked
+convulsively; but the paroxsym was brief; and scarce could she shudder
+at its intensity ere it had subsided into calm.
+
+"Enough of these thoughts, which thou, a woman and a child, art not
+formed to witness.  Leila, thou hast been nurtured with tenderness, and
+schooled with care.  Harsh and unloving may I have seemed to thee, but I
+would have shed the best drops of my heart to have saved thy young years
+from a single pang.  Nay, listen to me silently.  That thou mightest one
+day be worthy of thy race, and that thine hours might not pass in
+indolent and weary lassitude, thou hast been taught lessons of a
+knowledge rarely to thy sex.  Not thine the lascivious arts of the
+Moorish maidens; not thine their harlot songs, and their dances of lewd
+delight; thy delicate limbs were but taught the attitude that Nature
+dedicates to the worship of a God, and the music of thy voice was tuned
+to the songs of thy fallen country, sad with the memory of her wrongs,
+animated with the names of her heroes, with the solemnity of her prayers.
+These scrolls, and the lessons of our seers, have imparted to thee such
+of our science and our history as may fit thy mind to aspire, and thy
+heart to feel for a sacred cause.  Thou listenest to me, Leila?"
+
+Perplexed and wondering, for never before had her father addressed her in
+such a strain, the maiden answered with an earnestness of manner that
+seemed to content the questioner; and he resumed, with an altered,
+hollow, solemn voice:
+
+"Then curse the persecutors.  Daughter of the great Hebrew race, arise
+and curse the Moorish taskmaster and spoiler!"
+
+As he spoke, the adjuror himself rose, lifting his right hand on high;
+while his left touched the shoulder of the maiden.  But she, after gazing
+a moment in wild and terrified amazement upon his face, fell cowering at
+his knees; and, clasping them imploringly, exclaimed in scarce articulate
+murmurs:
+
+"Oh, spare me! spare me!"
+
+The Hebrew, for such he was, surveyed her, as she thus quailed at his
+feet, with a look of rage and scorn: his hand wandered to his poniard, he
+half unsheathed it, thrust it back with a muttered curse, and then,
+deliberately drawing it forth, cast it on the ground beside her.
+
+"Degenerate girl!" he said, in accents that vainly struggled for calm,
+"if thou hast admitted to thy heart one unworthy thought towards a
+Moorish infidel, dig deep and root it out, even with the knife, and to
+the death--so wilt thou save this hand from that degrading task."
+
+He drew himself hastily from her grasp, and left the unfortunate girl
+alone and senseless.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+AMBITION DISTORTED INTO VICE BY LAW.
+
+On descending a broad flight of stairs from the apartment, the Hebrew
+encountered an old man, habited in loose garments of silk and fur, upon
+whose withered and wrinkled face life seemed scarcely to struggle against
+the advance of death--so haggard, wan, and corpse-like was its aspect.
+
+"Ximen," said the Israelite, "trusty and beloved servant, follow me to
+the cavern."  He did not tarry for an answer, but continued his way with
+rapid strides through various courts and alleys, till he came at length
+into a narrow, dark, and damp gallery, that seemed cut from the living
+rock.  At its entrance was a strong grate, which gave way to the Hebrew's
+touch upon the spring, though the united strength of a hundred men could
+not have moved it from its hinge.  Taking up a brazen lamp that burnt in
+a niche within it, the Hebrew paused impatiently till the feeble steps of
+the old man reached the spot; and then, reclosing the grate, pursued his
+winding way for a considerable distance, till he stopped suddenly by a
+part of the rock which seemed in no respect different from the rest: and
+so artfully contrived and concealed was the door which he now opened, and
+so suddenly did it yield to his hand, that it appeared literally the
+effect of enchantment, when the rock yawned, and discovered a circular
+cavern, lighted with brazen lamps, and spread with hangings and cushions
+of thick furs.  Upon rude and seemingly natural pillars of rock, various
+antique and rusty arms were suspended; in large niches were deposited
+scrolls, clasped and bound with iron; and a profusion of strange and
+uncouth instruments and machines (in which modern science might, perhaps,
+discover the tools of chemical invention) gave a magical and ominous
+aspect to the wild abode.
+
+The Hebrew cast himself on a couch of furs; and, as the old man entered
+and closed the door, "Ximen," said he, "fill out wine--it is a soothing
+counsellor, and I need it."
+
+Extracting from one of the recesses of the cavern a flask and goblet,
+Ximen offered to his lord a copious draught of the sparkling vintage of
+the Vega, which seemed to invigorate and restore him.
+
+"Old man," said he, concluding the potation with a deep-drawn sigh, "fill
+to thyself-drink till thy veins feel young."
+
+Ximen obeyed the mandate but imperfectly; the wine just touched his lips,
+and the goblet was put aside.
+
+"Ximen," resumed the Israelite, "how many of our race have been butchered
+by the avarice of the Moorish kings since first thou didst set foot
+within the city?"
+
+"Three thousand--the number was completed last winter, by the order of
+Jusef the vizier; and their goods and coffers are transformed into shafts
+and cimiters against the dogs of Galilee."
+
+"Three thousand--no more! three thousand only!  I would the number had
+been tripled, for the interest is becoming due!"
+
+"My brother, and my son, and my grandson, are among the number," said the
+old man, and his face grew yet more deathlike.
+
+"Their monuments shall be in hecatombs of their tyrants.  They shall not,
+at least, call the Jews niggards in revenge."
+
+"But pardon me, noble chief of a fallen people; thinkest thou we shall be
+less despoiled and trodden under foot by yon haughty and stiff-necked
+Nazarenes, than by the Arabian misbelievers?"
+
+"Accursed, in truth, are both," returned the Hebrew; "but the one promise
+more fairly than the other.  I have seen this Ferdinand, and his proud
+queen; they are pledged to accord us rights and immunities we have never
+known before in Europe."
+
+"And they will not touch our traffic, our gains, our gold?"
+
+"Out on thee!" cried the fiery Israelite, stamping on the ground.  "I
+would all the gold of earth were sunk into the everlasting pit!  It is
+this mean, and miserable, and loathsome leprosy of avarice, that gnaws
+away from our whole race the heart, the soul, nay--the very form, of man!
+Many a time, when I have seen the lordly features of the descendants of
+Solomon and Joshua (features that stamp the nobility of the eastern world
+born to mastery and command) sharpened and furrowed by petty cares,--when
+I have looked upon the frame of the strong man bowed, like a crawling
+reptile, to some huckstering bargainer of silks and unguents,--and heard
+the voice, that should be raising the battle-cry, smoothed into fawning
+accents of base fear, or yet baser hope,--I have asked myself, if I am
+indeed of the blood of Israel! and thanked the great Jehovah that he hath
+spared me at least the curse that hath blasted my brotherhood into
+usurers and slaves"
+
+Ximen prudently forbore an answer to enthusiasm which he neither shared
+nor understood; but, after a brief silence, turned back the stream of the
+conversation.
+
+"You resolve, then, upon prosecuting vengeance on the Moors, at
+whatsoever hazard of the broken faith of these Nazarenes?"
+
+"Ay, the vapour of human blood hath risen unto heaven, and, collected
+into thunder-clouds, hangs over the doomed and guilty city.  And now,
+Ximen, I have a new cause for hatred to the Moors: the flower that I have
+reared and watched, the spoiler hath sought to pluck it from my hearth.
+Leila--thou hast guarded her ill, Ximen; and, wert thou not endeared to
+me by thy very malice and vices, the rising sun should have seen thy
+trunk on the waters of the Darro."
+
+"My lord," replied Ximen, "if thou, the wisest of our people, canst not
+guard a maiden from love, how canst thou see crime in the dull eyes and
+numbed senses of a miserable old man?"
+
+The Israelite did not answer, nor seem to hear this deprecatory
+remonstrance.  He appeared rather occupied with his own thoughts; and,
+speaking to himself, he muttered, "It must be so: the sacrifice is hard--
+the danger great; but here, at least, it is more immediate.  It shall be
+done.  Ximen," he continued, speaking aloud; "dost thou feel assured that
+even mine own countrymen, mine own tribe, know me not as one of them?
+Were my despised birth and religion published, my limbs would be torn
+asunder as an impostor; and all the arts of the Cabala could not save
+me."
+
+"Doubt not, great master; none in Granada, save thy faithful Ximen, know
+thy secret."
+
+"So let me dream and hope.  And now to my work; for this night must be
+spent in toil."
+
+The Hebrew drew before him some of the strange instruments we have
+described; and took from the recesses in the rock several scrolls.
+The old man lay at his feet, ready to obey his behests; but, to all
+appearance, rigid and motionless as the dead, whom his blanched hues and
+shrivelled form resembled.  It was, indeed, as the picture of the
+enchanter at his work, and the corpse of some man of old, revived from
+the grave to minister to his spells, and execute his commands.
+
+Enough in the preceding conversation has transpired to convince the
+reader, that the Hebrew, in whom he has already detected the Almamen of
+the Alhambra, was of no character common to his tribe.  Of a lineage that
+shrouded itself in the darkness of his mysterious people, in their day of
+power, and possessed of immense wealth, which threw into poverty the
+resources of Gothic princes,--the youth of that remarkable man had been
+spent, not in traffic and merchandise but travel and study.
+
+As a child, his home had been in Granada.  He had seen his father
+butchered by the late king, Muley Abul Hassan, without other crime than
+his reputed riches; and his body literally cut open, to search for the
+jewels it was supposed he had swallowed.  He saw, and, boy as he was he
+vowed revenge.  A distant kinsman bore the orphan to lands more secure
+from persecution; and the art with which the Jews concealed their wealth,
+scattering it over various cities, had secured to Almamen the treasures
+the tyrant of Granada had failed to grasp.
+
+He had visited the greater part of the world then known; and resided for
+many years at the court of the sultan of that hoary Egypt, which still
+retained its fame for abstruse science and magic lore.  He had not in
+vain applied himself to such tempting and wild researches; and had
+acquired many of those secrets now perhaps lost for ever to the world.
+We do not mean to intimate that he attained to what legend and
+superstition impose upon our faith as the art of sorcery.  He could
+neither command the elements nor pierce the veil of the future-scatter
+armies with a word, nor pass from spot to spot by the utterance of a
+charmed formula.  But men who, for ages, had passed their lives in
+attempting all the effects that can astonish and awe the vulgar, could
+not but learn some secrets which all the more sober wisdom of modern
+times would search ineffectually to solve or to revive.  And many of such
+arts, acquired mechanically (their invention often the work of a chemical
+accident), those who attained to them could not always explain, not
+account for the phenomena they created, so that the mightiness of their
+own deceptions deceived themselves; and they often believed they were the
+masters of the Nature to which they were, in reality, but erratic and
+wild disciples.  Of such was the student in that grim cavern.  He was, in
+some measure, the dupe, partly of his own bewildered wisdom, partly of
+the fervour of an imagination exceedingly high-wrought and enthusiastic.
+His own gorgeous vanity intoxicated him: and, if it be an historical
+truth that the kings of the ancient world, blinded by their own power,
+had moments in which they believed themselves more than men, it is not
+incredible that sages, elevated even above kings, should conceive a
+frenzy as weak, or, it may be, as sublime: and imagine that they did not
+claim in vain the awful dignity with which the faith of the multitude
+invested their faculties and gifts.
+
+But, though the accident of birth, which excluded him from all field for
+energy and ambition, had thus directed the powerful mind of Almamen to
+contemplation and study, nature had never intended passions so fierce for
+the calm, though visionary, pursuits to which he was addicted.  Amidst
+scrolls and seers, he had pined for action and glory; and, baffled in all
+wholesome egress, by the universal exclusion which, in every land, and
+from every faith, met the religion he belonged to, the faculties within
+him ran riot, producing gigantic but baseless schemes, which, as one
+after the other crumbled away, left behind feelings of dark misanthropy
+and intense revenge.
+
+Perhaps, had his religion been prosperous and powerful, he might have
+been a sceptic; persecution and affliction made him a fanatic.  Yet, true
+to that prominent characteristic of the old Hebrew race, which made them
+look to a Messiah only as a warrior and a prince, and which taught them
+to associate all their hopes and schemes with worldly victories and
+power, Almamen desired rather to advance, than to obey, his religion.
+He cared little for its precepts, he thought little of its doctrines;
+but, night and day, he revolved his schemes for its earthly restoration
+and triumph.
+
+At that time, the Moors in Spain were far more deadly persecutors of the
+Jews than the Christians were.  Amidst the Spanish cities on the coast,
+that merchant tribe had formed commercial connections with the
+Christians, sufficiently beneficial, both to individuals and to
+communities, to obtain for them, not only toleration, but something of
+personal friendship, wherever men bought and sold in the market-place.
+And the gloomy fanaticism which afterwards stained the fame of the great
+Ferdinand, and introduced the horrors of the Inquisition, had not yet
+made it self more than fitfully visible.  But the Moors had treated this
+unhappy people with a wholesale and relentless barbarity.  At Granada,
+under the reign of the fierce father of Boabdil,--"that king with the
+tiger heart,"--the Jews had been literally placed without the pale of
+humanity; and even under the mild and contemplative Boabdil himself, they
+had been plundered without mercy, and, if suspected of secreting their
+treasures, massacred without scruple; the wants of the state continued
+their unrelenting accusers,--their wealth, their inexpiable crime.
+
+It was in the midst of these barbarities that Almamen, for the first time
+since the day when the death-shriek of his agonised father rang in his
+ears, suddenly returned to Granada.  He saw the unmitigated miseries of
+his brethern, and he remembered and repeated his vow.  His name changed,
+his kindred dead, none remembered, in the mature Almamen, the beardless
+child of Issachar, the Jew.  He had long, indeed, deemed it advisable to
+disguise his faith; and was known, throughout the African kingdoms, but
+as the potent santon, or the wise magician.
+
+This fame soon lifted him, in Granada, high in the councils of the court.
+Admitted to the intimacy of Muley Hassan, with Boabdil, and the queen
+mother, he had conspired against that monarch; and had lived, at least,
+to avenge his father upon the royal murderer.  He was no less intimate
+with Boabdil; but steeled against fellowship or affection for all men out
+of the pale of his faith, he saw in the confidence of the king only the
+blindness of a victim.
+
+Serpent as he was, he cared not through what mire of treachery and fraud
+he trailed his baleful folds, so that, at last, he could spring upon his
+prey.  Nature had given him sagacity and strength.  The curse of
+circumstance had humbled, but reconciled him to the dust.  He had the
+crawl of the reptile,--he had, also, its poison and its fangs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE LION IN THE NET
+
+IT was the next night, not long before daybreak, that the King of Granada
+abruptly summoned to his council Jusef, his vizier.  The old man found
+Boabdil in great disorder and excitement; but he almost deemed his
+sovereign mad, when he received from him the order to seize upon the
+person of Muza Ben Abil Gazan, and to lodge him in the strongest dungeon
+of the Vermilion Tower.  Presuming upon Boabdil's natural mildness, the
+vizier ventured to remonstrate,--to suggest the danger of laying violent
+hands upon a chief so beloved,--and to inquire what cause should be
+assigned for the outrage.
+
+The veins swelled like cords upon Boabdil's brow, as he listened to the
+vizier; and his answer was short and peremptory.
+
+"Am I yet a king, that I should fear a subject, or excuse my will?  Thou
+hast my orders; there are my signet and the firman: obedience or the
+bow-string!"
+
+Never before had Boabdil so resembled his dread father in speech and air;
+the vizier trembled to the soles of his feet, and withdrew in silence.
+Boabdil watched him depart; and then, clasping his hands in great
+emotion, exclaimed, "O lips of the dead! ye have warned me; and to you
+I sacrifice the friend of my youth."
+
+On quitting Boabdil the vizier, taking with him some of those foreign
+slaves of a seraglio, who know no sympathy with human passion outside its
+walls, bent his way to the palace of Muza, sorely puzzled and perplexed.
+He did not, however, like to venture upon the hazard of the alarm it
+might occasion throughout the neighbourhood, if he endeavoured, at so
+unseasonable an hour, to force an entrance.  He resolved, rather, with
+his train to wait at a little distance, till, with the growing dawn, the
+gates should be unclosed, and the inmates of the palace astir.
+
+Accordingly, cursing his stars, and wondering at his mission, Jusef, and
+his silent and ominous attendants, concealed themselves in a small copse
+adjoining the palace, until the daylight fairly broke over the awakened
+city.  He then passed into the palace; and was conducted to a hall, where
+he found the renowned Moslem already astir, and conferring with some
+Zegri captains upon the tactics of a sortie designed for that day.
+
+It was with so evident a reluctance and apprehension that Jusef
+approached the prince, that the fierce and quick-sighted Zegris instantly
+suspected some evil intention in his visit; and when Muza, in surprise,
+yielded to the prayer of the vizier for a private audience, it was with
+scowling brows and sparkling eyes that the Moorish warriors left the
+darling of the nobles alone with the messenger of their king.
+
+"By the tomb of the prophet!" said one of the Zegris, as he quitted the
+hall, "the timid Boabdil suspects our Ben Abil Gazan.  I learned of this
+before."
+
+"Hush!" said another of the band; "let us watch.  If the king touch a
+hair of Muza's head, Allah have mercy on his sins!"
+
+Meanwhile, the vizier, in silence, showed to Muza the firman and the
+signet; and then, without venturing to announce the place to which he was
+commissioned to conduct the prince, besought him to follow at once.  Muza
+changed colour, but not with fear.
+
+"Alas!" said he, in a tone of deep sorrow, "can it be that I have fallen
+under my royal kinsman's suspicion or displeasure?  But no matter; proud
+to set to Granada an example of valour in her defence, be it mine to set,
+also, an example of obedience to her king.  Go on--I will follow thee.
+Yet stay, you will have no need of guards; let us depart by a private
+egress: the Zegris might misgive, did they see me leave the palace with
+you at the very time the army are assembling in the Vivarrambla, and
+awaiting my presence.  This way."
+
+Thus saying, Muza, who, fierce as he was, obeyed every impulse that the
+oriental loyalty dictated from a subject to a king, passed from the hall
+to a small door that admitted into the garden, and in thoughtful silence
+accompanied the vizier towards the Alhambra.  As they passed the copse in
+which Muza, two nights before, had met with Almamen, the Moor, lifting
+his head suddenly, beheld fixed upon him the dark eyes of the magician,
+as he emerged from the trees.  Muza thought there was in those eyes a
+malign and hostile exultation; but Almamen, gravely saluting him, passed
+on through the grove: the prince did not deign to look back, or he might
+once more have encountered that withering gaze.
+
+"Proud heathen!" muttered Almamen to himself, "thy father filled his
+treasuries from the gold of many a tortured Hebrew; and even thou, too
+haughty to be the miser, hast been savage enough to play the bigot.  Thy
+name is a curse in Israel; yet dost thou lust after the daughter of our
+despised race, and, could defeated passion sting thee, I were avenged.
+Ay, sweep on, with thy stately step and lofty crest-thou goest to chains,
+perhaps to death."
+
+As Almamen thus vented his bitter spirit, the last gleam of the white
+robes of Muza vanished from his gaze.  He paused a moment, turned away
+abruptly, and said, half aloud, "Vengeance, not on one man only, but a
+whole race!  Now for the Nazarene."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK. II.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE ROYAL TENT OF SPAIN.--THE KING AND THE DOMINICAN--THE VISITOR
+AND THE HOSTAGE.
+
+Our narrative now summons us to the Christian army, and to the tent in
+which the Spanish king held nocturnal counsel with some of his more
+confidential warriors and advisers.  Ferdinand had taken the field with
+all the pomp and circumstance of a tournament rather than of a campaign;
+and his pavilion literally blazed with purple and cloth of gold.
+
+The king sat at the head of a table on which were scattered maps and
+papers; nor in countenance and mien did that great and politic monarch
+seem unworthy of the brilliant chivalry by which he was surrounded.  His
+black hair, richly perfumed and anointed, fell in long locks on either
+side of a high imperial brow, upon whose calm, though not unfurrowed
+surface, the physiognomist would in vain have sought to read the
+inscrutable heart of kings.  His features were regular and majestic: and
+his mantle, clasped with a single jewel of rare price and lustre, and
+wrought at the breast with a silver cross, waved over a vigorous and
+manly frame, which derived from the composed and tranquil dignity of
+habitual command that imposing effect which many of the renowned knights
+and heroes in his presence took from loftier stature and ampler
+proportions.  At his right hand sat Prince Juan, his son, in the first
+bloom of youth; at his left, the celebrated Rodrigo Ponce de Leon,
+Marquess of Cadiz; along the table, in the order of their military rank,
+were seen the splendid Duke of Medina Sidonia, equally noble in aspect
+and in name; the worn and thoughtful countenance of the Marquess de
+Villena (the Bayard of Spain); the melancholy brow of the heroic Alonzo
+de Aguilar; and the gigantic frame, the animated features, and sparkling
+eyes, of that fiery Hernando del Pulgar, surnamed "the knight of the
+exploits."
+
+"You see, senores," said the king, continuing an address, to which his
+chiefs seemed to listen with reverential attention, "our best hope of
+speedily gaining the city is rather in the dissensions of the Moors than
+our own sacred arms.  The walls are strong, the population still
+numerous; and under Muza Ben Abil Gazan, the tactics of the hostile army
+are, it must be owned, administered with such skill as to threaten very
+formidable delays to the period of our conquest.  Avoiding the hazard of
+a fixed battle, the infidel cavalry harass our camp by perpetual
+skirmishes; and in the mountain defiles our detachments cannot cope with
+their light horse and treacherous ambuscades.  It is true, that by dint
+of time, by the complete devastation of the Vega, and by vigilant
+prevention of convoys from the seatowns, we might starve the city into
+yielding.  But, alas! my lords, our enemies are scattered and numerous,
+and Granada is not the only place before which the standard of Spain
+should be unfurled.  Thus situated, the lion does not disdain to serve
+himself of the fox; and, fortunately, we have now in Granada an ally that
+fights for us.  I have actual knowledge of all that passes within the
+Alhambra: the king yet remains in his palace, irresolute and dreaming;
+and I trust that an intrigue by which his jealousies are aroused against
+his general, Muza, may end either in the loss of that able leader, or in
+the commotion of open rebellion or civil war.  Treason within Granada
+will open its gates to us."
+
+"Sire," said Ponce de Leon, after a pause, "under your counsels, I no
+more doubt of seeing our banner float above the Vermilion Towers, than I
+doubt the rising of the sun over yonder hills; it matters little whether
+we win by stratagem or force.  But I need not say to your highness, that
+we should carefully beware lest we be amused by inventions of the enemy,
+and trust to conspiracies which may be but lying tales to blunt our
+sabres, and paralyse our action."
+
+"Bravely spoken, wise de Leon!" exclaimed Hernando del Pulgar, hotly:
+"and against these infidels, aided by the cunning of the Evil One,
+methinks our best wisdom lies in the sword-arm.  Well says our old
+Castilian proverb:
+
+                    'Curse them devoutly,
+                    Hammer them stoutly.'"
+
+The king smiled slightly at the ardour of the favourite of his army, but
+looked round for more deliberate counsel.  "Sire," said Villena, "far be
+it from us to inquire the grounds upon which your majesty builds your
+hope of dissension among the foe; but, placing the most sanguine
+confidence in a wisdom never to be deceived, it is clear that we should
+relax no energy within our means, but fight while we plot, and seek to
+conquer, while we do not neglect to undermine."
+
+"You speak well, my Lord," said Ferdinand, thoughtfully; "and you
+yourself shall head a strong detachment to-morrow, to lay waste the Vega.
+Seek me two hours hence; the council for the present is dissolved."
+
+The knights rose, and withdrew with the usual grave and stately
+ceremonies of respect, which Ferdinand observed to, and exacted from, his
+court: the young prince remained.
+
+"Son," said Ferdinand, when they were alone, "early and betimes should
+the Infants of Spain be lessoned in the science of kingcraft.  These
+nobles are among the brightest jewels of the crown; but still it is in
+the crown, and for the crown, that their light should sparkle.  Thou
+seest how hot, and fierce, and warlike, are the chiefs of Spain--
+excellent virtues when manifested against our foes: but had we no foes,
+Juan, such virtues might cause us exceeding trouble.  By St. Jago, I have
+founded a mighty monarchy! observe how it should be maintained--by
+science, Juan, by science! and science is as far removed from brute force
+as this sword from a crowbar.  Thou seemest bewildered and amazed, my
+son: thou hast heard that I seek to conquer Granada by dissensions among
+the Moors; when Granada is conquered, remember that the nobles themselves
+are at Granada.  Ave Maria! blessed be the Holy Mother, under whose eyes
+are the hearts of kings!" Ferdinand crossed himself devoutly; and then,
+rising, drew aside a part of the drapery of the pavilion, and called; in
+a low voice, the name of Perez.  A grave Spaniard, somewhat past the
+verge of middle age, appeared.
+
+"Perez," said the king, reseating himself, "has the person we expected
+from Granada yet arrived?"
+
+"Sire, yes; accompanied by a maiden."
+
+"He hath kept his word; admit them.  Ha! holy father, thy visits are
+always as balsam to the heart."
+
+"Save you, my son!" returned a man in the robes of a Dominican friar, who
+had entered suddenly and without ceremony by another part of the tent,
+and who now seated himself with smileless composure at a little distance
+from the king.
+
+There was a dead silence for some moments; and Perez still lingered
+within the tent, as if in doubt whether the entrance of the friar would
+not prevent or delay obedience to the king's command.  On the calm face
+of Ferdinand himself appeared a slight shade of discomposure and
+irresolution, when the monk thus resumed:
+
+"My presence, my son, will not, I trust, disturb your conference with the
+infidel--since you deem that worldly policy demands your parley with the
+men of Belial."
+
+"Doubtless not--doubtless not," returned the king, quickly: then,
+muttering to himself, "how wondrously doth this holy man penetrate into
+all our movements and designs!" he added, aloud, "Let the messenger
+enter."
+
+Perez bowed, and withdrew.
+
+During this time, the young prince reclined in listless silence on his
+seat; and on his delicate features was an expression of weariness which
+augured but ill of his fitness for the stern business to which the
+lessons of his wise father were intended to educate his mind.  His,
+indeed, was the age, and his the soul, for pleasure; the tumult of the
+camp was to him but a holiday exhibition--the march of an army, the
+exhilaration of a spectacle; the court as a banquet--the throne, the best
+seat at the entertainment.  The life of the heir-apparent, to the life of
+the king possessive, is as the distinction between enchanting hope and
+tiresome satiety.
+
+The small grey eyes of the friar wandered over each of his royal
+companions with a keen and penetrating glance, and then settled in the
+aspect of humility on the rich carpets that bespread the floor; nor did
+he again lift them till Perez, reappearing, admitted to the tent the
+Israelite, Almamen, accompanied by a female figure, whose long veil,
+extending from head to foot, could conceal neither the beautiful
+proportions nor the trembling agitation, of her frame.
+
+"When last, great king, I was admitted to thy presence," said Almamen,
+"thou didst make question of the sincerity and faith of thy servant; thou
+didst ask me for a surety of my faith; thou didst demand a hostage; and
+didst refuse further parley without such pledge were yielded to thee.
+Lo! I place under thy kingly care this maiden--the sole child of my
+house--as surety of my truth; I intrust to thee a life dearer than my
+own."
+
+"You have kept faith with us, stranger," said the king, in that soft and
+musical voice which well disguised his deep craft and his unrelenting
+will; "and the maiden whom you intrust to our charge shall be ranked with
+the ladies of our royal consort."
+
+"Sire," replied Almamen, with touching earnestness, you now hold the
+power of life and death over all for whom this heart can breathe a prayer
+or cherish a hope, save for my countrymen and my religion.  This solemn
+pledge between thee and me I render up without scruple, without fear.  To
+thee I give a hostage, from thee I have but a promise."
+
+"But it is the promise of a king, a Christian, and a knight," said the
+king, with dignity rather mild than arrogant; "among monarchs, what
+hostage can be more sacred?  Let this pass: how proceed affairs in the
+rebel city?"
+
+"May this maiden withdraw, ere I answer my lord the king?" said Almamen.
+
+The young prince started to his feet.  "Shall I conduct this new charge
+to my mother?" he asked, in a low voice, addressing Ferdinand.
+
+The king half smiled: "The holy father were a better guide," he returned,
+in the same tone.  But, though the Dominican heard the hint, he retained
+his motionless posture; and Ferdinand, after a momentary gaze on the
+friar, turned away.  "Be it so, Juan," said he, with a look meant to
+convey caution to the prince; "Perez shall accompany you to the queen:
+return the moment your mission is fulfilled--we want your presence."
+
+While this conversation was carried on between the father and son, the
+Hebrew was whispering, in his sacred tongue, words of comfort and
+remonstrance to the maiden; but they appeared to have but little of the
+desired effect; and, suddenly falling on his breast, she wound her arms
+around the Hebrew, whose breast shook with strong emotions, and exclaimed
+passionately, in the same language, "Oh, my father!  what have I done?--
+why send me from thee?--why intrust thy child to the stranger?  Spare me,
+spare me!"
+
+"Child of my heart!" returned the Hebrew, with solemn but tender accents,
+"even as Abraham offered up his son, must I offer thee, upon the altars
+of our faith; but, O Leila!  even as the angel of the Lord forbade the
+offering, so shall thy youth be spared, and thy years reserved for the
+glory of generations yet unborn.  King of Spain!" he continued in the
+Spanish tongue, suddenly and eagerly, "you are a father, forgive my
+weakness, and speed this parting."
+
+Juan approached; and with respectful courtesy attempted to take the hand
+of the maiden.
+
+"You?" said the Israelite, with a dark frown.  "O king! the prince is
+young."
+
+"Honour knoweth no distinction of age," answered the king.  "What ho,
+Perez! accompany this maiden and the prince to the queen's pavilion."
+
+The sight of the sober years and grave countenance of the attendant
+seemed to re-assure the Hebrew.  He strained Leila in his arms; printed a
+kiss upon her forehead without removing her veil; and then, placing her
+almost in the arms of Perez, turned away to the further end of the tent,
+and concealed his face with his hands.  The king appeared touched; but
+the Dominican gazed upon the whole scene with a sour scowl.
+
+Leila still paused for a moment; and then, as if recovering her self-
+possession, said, aloud and distinctly,--"Man deserts me; but I will not
+forget that God is over all."  Shaking off the hand of the Spaniard, she
+continued, "Lead on; I follow thee!" and left the tent with a steady and
+even majestic step.
+
+"And now," said the king, when alone with the Dominican and Almamen, "how
+proceed our hopes?"
+
+"Boabdil," replied the Israelite, "is aroused against both his army and
+their leader, Muza; the king will not quit the Alhambra; and this
+morning, ere I left the city, Muza himself was in the prisons of the
+palace."
+
+"How!" cried the king, starting from his seat.
+
+"This is my work," pursued the Hebrew.  coldly.  "It is these hands that
+are shaping for Ferdinand of Spain the keys of Granada."
+
+"And right kingly shall be your guerdon," said the Spanish monarch:
+"meanwhile, accept this earnest of our favour."  So saying, he took from
+his breast a chain of massive gold, the links of which were curiously
+inwrought with gems, and extended it to the Israelite.  Almamen moved
+not.  A dark flush upon his countenance bespoke the feelings he with
+difficulty restrained.
+
+"I sell not my foes for gold, great king," said he, with a stern smile:
+"I sell my foes to buy the ransom of my friends."
+
+"Churlish!" said Ferdinand, offended: "but speak on, man, speak on!"
+
+"If I place Granada, ere two weeks are past, within thy power, what shall
+be my reward?"
+
+"Thou didst talk to me, when last we met, of immunities to the Jews."
+
+The calm Dominican looked up as the king spoke, crossed himself, and
+resumed his attitude of humility.
+
+"I demand for the people of Israel," returned Almamen, "free leave to
+trade and abide within the city, and follow their callings, subjected
+only to the same laws and the same imposts as the Christian population."
+
+"The same laws, and the same imposts!  Humph! there are difficulties in
+the concession.  If we refuse?"
+
+"Our treaty is ended.  Give me back the maiden--you will have no further
+need of the hostage you demanded: I return to the city, and renew our
+interviews no more."
+
+Politic and cold-blooded as was the temperament of the great Ferdinand,
+he had yet the imperious and haughty nature of a prosperous and long-
+descended king; and he bit his lip in deep displeasure at the tone of the
+dictatorial and stately stranger.
+
+"Thou usest plain language, my friend," said he; "my words can be as
+rudely spoken.  Thou art in my power, and canst return not, save at my
+permission."
+
+"I have your royal word, sire, for free entrance and safe egress,"
+answered Almamen.  "Break it, and Granada is with the Moors till the
+Darro runs red with the blood of her heroes, and her people strew the
+vales as the leaves in autumn."
+
+"Art thou then thyself of the Jewish faith?" asked the king.  "If thou
+art not, wherefore are the outcasts of the world so dear to thee?"
+
+"My fathers were of that creed, royal Ferdinand; and if I myself desert
+their creed, I do not desert their cause.  O king!  are my terms scorned
+or accepted?"
+
+"I accept them: provided, first, that thou obtainest the exile or death
+of Muza; secondly, that within two weeks of this date thou bringest me,
+along with the chief councillors of Granada, the written treaty of the
+capitulation, and the keys of the city.  Do this: and though the sole
+king in Christendom who dares the hazard, I offer to the Israelites
+throughout Andalusia the common laws and rights of citizens of Spain; and
+to thee I will accord such dignity as may content thy ambition."
+
+The Hebrew bowed reverently, and drew from his breast a scroll, which he
+placed on the table before the king.  "This writing, mighty Ferdinand,
+contains the articles of our compact."
+
+"How, knave! wouldst thou have us commit our royal signature to
+conditions with such as thou art, to the chance of the public eye?  The
+king's word is the king's bond!"
+
+The Hebrew took up the scroll with imperturbable composure, "My child!"
+said he; "will your majesty summon back my child?  we would depart."
+
+"A sturdy mendicant this, by the Virgin!" muttered the king; and then,
+speaking aloud, "Give me the paper, I will scan it."
+
+Running his eyes hastily over the words, Ferdinand paused a moment, and
+then drew towards him the implements of writing, signed the scroll, and
+returned it to Almamen.
+
+The Israelite kissed it thrice with oriental veneration, and replaced it
+in his breast.
+
+Ferdinand looked at him hard and curiously.  He was a profound reader of
+men's characters; but that of his guest baffled and perplexed him.
+
+"And how, stranger," said he, gravely,--"how can I trust that man who
+thus distrusts one king and sells another?"
+
+"O king!" replied Almamen (accustomed from his youth to commune with and
+command the possessors of thrones yet more absolute),--"O king! if thou
+believest me actuated by personal and selfish interests in this our
+compact, thou has but to make, my service minister to my interest, and
+the lore of human nature will tell thee that thou hast won a ready and
+submissive slave.  But if thou thinkest I have avowed sentiments less
+abject, and developed qualities higher than those of the mere bargainer
+for sordid power, oughtest thou not to rejoice that chance has thrown
+into thy way one whose intellect and faculties may be made thy tool?  If
+I betray another, that other is my deadly foe.  Dost not thou, the lord
+of armies, betray thine enemy?  The Moor is an enemy bitterer to myself
+than to thee.  Because I betray an enemy, am I unworthy to serve a
+friend?  If I, a single man, and a stranger to the Moor, can yet command
+the secrets of palaces, and render vain the counsels of armed men, have I
+not in that attested that I am one of whom a wise king can make an able
+servant?"
+
+"Thou art a subtle reasoner, my friend," said Ferdinand, smiling gently.
+"Peace go with thee!  our conference for the time is ended.  What ho,
+Perez!"  The attendant appeared.
+
+"Thou hast left the maiden with the queen?"
+
+"Sire, you have been obeyed."
+
+"Conduct this stranger to the guard who led him through the camp.  He
+quits us under the same protection.  Farewell!  yet stay--thou art
+assured that Muza Ben Abil Gazan is in the prisons of the Moor?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Blessed be the Virgin!"
+
+"Thou hast heard our conference, Father Tomas?" said the king, anxiously,
+when the Hebrew had withdrawn.
+
+"I have, son."
+
+"Did thy veins freeze with horror?"
+
+"Only when my son signed the scroll.  It seemed to me then that I saw the
+cloven foot of the tempter."
+
+"Tush, father, the tempter would have been more wise than to reckon upon
+a faith which no ink and no parchment can render valid, if the Church
+absolve the compact.  Thou understandest me, father?"
+
+"I do.  I know your pious heart and well-judging mind."
+
+"Thou wert right," resumed the king, musingly, "when thou didst tell us
+that these caitiff Jews were waxing strong in the fatness of their
+substance.  They would have equal laws--the insolent blasphemers!"
+
+"Son!" said the Dominican, with earnest adjuration, "God, who has
+prospered your arms and councils, will require at your hands an account
+of the power intrusted to you.  Shall there be no difference between His
+friends and His foes--His disciples and His crucifiers?"
+
+"Priest," said the king, laying his hand on the monk's shoulder, and with
+a saturnine smile upon his countenance, "were religion silent in this
+matter, policy has a voice loud enough to make itself heard.  The Jews
+demand equal rights; when men demand equality with their masters, treason
+is at work, and justice sharpens her sword.  Equality! these wealthy
+usurers!  Sacred Virgin! they would be soon buying up our kingdoms."
+
+The Dominican gazed hard on the king.  "Son, I trust thee," he said, in a
+low voice, and glided from the tent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE AMBUSH, THE STRIFE, AND THE CAPTURE.
+
+The dawn was slowly breaking over the wide valley of Granada, as Almamen
+pursued his circuitous and solitary path back to the city.  He was now in
+a dark and entangled hollow, covered with brakes and bushes, from amidst
+which tall forest trees rose in frequent intervals, gloomy and breathless
+in the still morning air.  As, emerging from this jungle, if so it may be
+called, the towers of Granada gleamed upon him, a human countenance
+peered from the shade; and Almamen started to see two dark eyes fixed
+upon his own.
+
+He halted abruptly, and put his hand on his dagger, when a low sharp
+whistle from the apparition before him was answered around--behind; and,
+ere he could draw breath, the Israelite was begirt by a group of Moors,
+in the garb of peasants.
+
+"Well, my masters," said Almamen, calmly, as he encountered the wild
+savage countenances that glared upon him, "think you there is aught to
+fear from the solitary santon?"
+
+"It is the magician," whispered one man to his neighbour--"let him pass."
+
+"Nay," was the answer, "take him before the captain; we have orders to
+seize upon all we meet."
+
+This counsel prevailed; and gnashing his teeth with secret rage, Almamen
+found himself hurried along by the peasants through the thickest part of
+the copse.  At length, the procession stopped in a semicircular patch of
+rank sward, in which several head of cattle were quietly grazing, and a
+yet more numerous troop of peasants reclined around upon the grass.
+
+"Whom have we here?" asked a voice which startled back the dark blood
+from Almamen's cheek; and a Moor of commanding presence rose from the
+midst of his brethren.  "By the beard of the prophet, it is the false
+santon! What dost thou from Granada at this hour?"
+
+"Noble Muza," returned Almamen--who, though indeed amazed that one whom
+he had imagined his victim was thus unaccountably become his judge,
+retained, at least, the semblance of composure--"my answer is to be given
+only to my lord the king; it is his commands that I obey."
+
+"Thou art aware," said Muza, frowning, "that thy life is forfeited
+without appeal?  Whatsoever inmate of Granada is found without the walls
+between sunrise and sunset, dies the death of a traitor and deserter."
+
+"The servants of the Alhambra are excepted," answered the Israelite,
+without changing countenance.
+
+"Ah!" muttered Muza, as a painful and sudden thought seemed to cross him,
+"can it be possible that the rumour of the city has truth, and that the
+monarch of Granada is in treaty with the foe?" He mused a little; and
+then, motioning the Moors to withdraw, he continued aloud, "Almamen,
+answer me truly: hast thou sought the Christian camp with any message
+from the king?"
+
+"I have not."
+
+"Art thou without the walls on the mission of the king?"
+
+"If I be so, I am a traitor to the king should I reveal his secret."
+
+"I doubt thee much, santon," said Muza, after a pause; "I know thee for
+my enemy, and I do believe thy counsels have poisoned the king's ear
+against me, his people and his duties.  But no matter, thy life is spared
+a while; thou remainest with us, and with us shalt thou return to the
+king."
+
+"But, noble Muza----"
+
+"I have said!  Guard the santon; mount him upon one of our chargers; he
+shall abide with us in our ambush."  While Almamen chafed in vain at his
+arrest, all in the Christian camp was yet still.  At length, as the sun
+began to lift himself above the mountains, first a murmur, and then a
+din, betokened warlike preparations.  Several parties of horse, under
+gallant and experienced leaders, formed themselves in different quarters,
+and departed in different ways, on expeditions of forage, or in the hope
+of skirmish with the straggling detachments of the enemy.  Of these, the
+best equipped, was conducted by the Marquess de Villena, and his gallant
+brother Don Alonzo de Pacheco.  In this troop, too, rode many of the best
+blood of Spain; for in that chivalric army, the officers vied with each
+other who should most eclipse the meaner soldiery in feats of personal
+valour; and the name of Villena drew around him the eager and ardent
+spirits that pined at the general inactivity of Ferdinand's politic
+campaign.
+
+The sun, now high in heaven, glittered on the splendid arms and gorgeous
+pennons of Villena's company, as, leaving the camp behind, it entered a
+rich and wooded district that skirts the mountain barrier of the Vega.
+The brilliancy of the day, the beauty of the scene, the hope and
+excitement of enterprise, animated the spirits of the whole party.
+In these expeditions strict discipline was often abandoned, from the
+certainty that it could be resumed at need.  Conversation, gay and loud,
+interspersed at times with snatches of song, was heard amongst the
+soldiery; and in the nobler group that rode with Villena, there was even
+less of the proverbial gravity of Spaniards.
+
+"Now, marquess," said Don Estevon de Suzon, "what wager shall be between
+us as to which lance this day robs Moorish beauty of the greatest number
+of its worshippers?"
+
+"My falchion against your jennet," said Don Alonzo de Pacheco, taking up
+the challenge.
+
+"Agreed.  But, talking of beauty, were you in the queen's pavilion last
+night, noble marquess? it was enriched by a new maiden, whose strange and
+sudden apparition none can account for.  Her eyes would have eclipsed the
+fatal glance of Cava; and had I been Rodrigo, I might have lost a crown
+for her smile."
+
+"Ay," said Villena, "I heard of her beauty; some hostage from one of the
+traitor Moors, with whom the king (the saints bless him!) bargains for
+the city.  They tell me the prince incurred the queen's grave rebuke for
+his attentions to the maiden."
+
+"And this morning I saw that fearful Father Tomas steal into the prince's
+tent.  I wish Don Juan well through the lecture.  The monk's advice is
+like the algarroba;--[The algarroba is a sort of leguminous plant common
+in Spain]--when it is laid up to dry it may be reasonably wholesome, but
+it is harsh and bitter enough when taken fresh."
+
+At this moment one of the subaltern officers rode up to the marquess, and
+whispered in his ear.
+
+"Ha!" said Villena, "the Virgin be praised!  Sir knights, booty is at
+hand.  Silence! close the ranks."  With that, mounting a little eminence,
+and shading his eyes with his hand, the marquess surveyed the plain
+below; and, at some distance, he beheld a horde of Moorish peasants
+driving some cattle into a thick copse.  The word was hastily given, the
+troop dashed on, every voice was hushed, and the clatter of mail, and the
+sound of hoofs, alone broke the delicious silence of the noon-day
+landscape.
+
+Ere they reached the copse, the peasants had disappeared within it.  The
+marquess marshalled his men in a semicircle round the trees, and sent on
+a detachment to the rear, to cut off every egress from the wood.  This
+done the troop dashed within.  For the first few yards the space was more
+open than they had anticipated: but the ground soon grew uneven, rugged,
+and almost precipitous, and the soil, and the interlaced trees, alike
+forbade any rapid motion to the horse.  Don Alonzo de Pacheco, mounted on
+a charger whose agile and docile limbs had been tutored to every
+description of warfare, and himself of light weight and incomparable
+horsemanship--dashed on before the rest.  The trees hid him for a moment;
+when suddenly, a wild yell was heard, and as it ceased uprose the
+solitary voice of the Spaniard, shouting, "_Santiago, y cierra_, Espana;
+St. Jago, and charge, Spain!"
+
+Each cavalier spurred forward; when suddenly, a shower of darts and
+arrows rattled on their armour; and upsprung from bush and reeds, and
+rocky clift, a number of Moors, and with wild shouts swarmed around the
+Spaniards.
+
+"Back for your lives!" cried Villena; "we are beset--make for the level
+ground!"
+
+He turned-spurred from the thicket, and saw the Paynim foe emerging
+through the glen, line after line of man and horse; each Moor leading his
+slight and fiery steed by the bridle, and leaping on it as he issued from
+the wood into the plain.  Cased in complete mail, his visor down, his
+lance in its rest, Villena (accompanied by such of his knights as could
+disentangle themselves from the Moorish foot) charged upon the foe.  A
+moment of fierce shock passed: on the ground lay many a Moor, pierced
+through by the Christian lance; and on the other side of the foe was
+heard the voice of Villena--"St. Jago to the rescue!"  But the brave
+marquess stood almost alone, save his faithful chamberlain, Solier.
+Several of his knights were dismounted, and swarms of Moors, with lifted
+knives, gathered round them as they lay, searching for the joints of the
+armour, which might admit a mortal wound.  Gradually, one by one, many of
+Villena's comrades joined their leader, and now the green mantle of Don
+Alonzo de Pacheco was seen waving without the copse, and Villena
+congratulated himself on the safety of his brother.  Just at that moment,
+a Moorish cavalier spurred from his troop, and met Pacheco in full
+career.  The Moor was not clad, as was the common custom of the Paynim
+nobles, in the heavy Christian armour.  He wore the light flexile mail of
+the ancient heroes of Araby or Fez.  His turban, which was protected by
+chains of the finest steel interwoven with the folds, was of the most
+dazzling white--white, also, were his tunic and short mantle; on his left
+arm hung a short circular shield, in his right hand was poised a long and
+slender lance.  As this Moor, mounted on a charger in whose raven hue not
+a white hair could be detected, dashed forward against Pacheco, both
+Christian and Moor breathed hard, and remained passive.  Either nation
+felt it as a sacrilege to thwart the encounter of champions so renowned.
+
+"God save my brave brother!" muttered Villena, anxiously.  "Amen," said
+those around him; for all who had ever witnessed the wildest valour in
+that war, trembled as they recognised the dazzling robe and coal-black
+charger of Muza Ben Abil Gazan.  Nor was that renowned infidel mated with
+an unworthy foe.  "Pride of the tournament, and terror of the war," was
+the favourite title which the knights and ladies of Castile had bestowed
+on Don Alonzo de Pacheco.
+
+When the Spaniard saw the redoubted Moor approach, he halted abruptly for
+a moment, and then, wheeling his horse around, took a wider circuit, to
+give additional impetus to his charge.  The Moor, aware of his purpose,
+halted also, and awaited the moment of his rush; when once more he darted
+forward, and the combatants met with a skill which called forth a cry of
+involuntary applause from the Christians themselves.  Muza received on
+the small surface of his shield the ponderous spear of Alonzo, while his
+own light lance struck upon the helmet of the Christian, and by the
+exactness of the aim rather than the weight of the blow, made Alonzo reel
+in his saddle.
+
+The lances were thrown aside--the long broad falchion of the Christian,
+the curved Damascus cimiter of the Moor, gleamed in the air.  They reined
+their chargers opposite each other in grave and deliberate silence.
+
+"Yield thee, sir knight!" at length cried the fierce Moor, "for the motto
+on my cimiter declares that if thou meetest its stroke, thy days are
+numbered.  The sword of the believer is the Key of Heaven and Hell."
+--[Such, says Sale, is the poetical phrase of the Mohammedan divines.]
+
+"False Paynim," answered Alonzo, in a voice that rung hollow through his
+helmet, "a Christian knight is the equal of a Moorish army!"
+
+Muza made no reply, but left the rein of his charger on his neck; the
+noble animal understood the signal, and with a short impatient cry rushed
+forward at full speed.  Alonzo met the charge with his falchion upraised,
+and his whole body covered with his shield; the Moor bent--the Spaniards
+raised a shout--Muza seemed stricken from his horse.  But the blow of the
+heavy falchion had not touched him: and, seemingly without an effort, the
+curved blade of his own cimiter, gliding by that part of his antagonist's
+throat where the helmet joins the cuirass, passed unresistingly and
+silently through the joints; and Alonzo fell at once, and without a
+groan, from his horse--his armour, to all appearance, unpenetrated, while
+the blood oozed slow and gurgling from a mortal wound.
+
+"Allah il Allah!" shouted Muza, as he joined his friends; "Lelilies!
+Lelilies!" echoed the Moors; and ere the Christians recovered their
+dismay, they were engaged hand to hand with their ferocious and swarming
+foes.  It was, indeed, fearful odds; and it was a marvel to the Spaniards
+how the Moors had been enabled to harbour and conceal their numbers in so
+small a space.  Horse and foot alike beset the company of Villena,
+already sadly reduced; and while the infantry, with desperate and savage
+fierceness, thrust themselves under the very bellies of the chargers,
+encountering both the hoofs of the steed and the deadly lance of the
+rider, in the hope of finding a vulnerable place for the sharp Moorish
+knife,--the horsemen, avoiding the stern grapple of the Spaniard
+warriors, harrassed them by the shaft and lance,--now advancing, now
+retreating, and performing, with incredible rapidity, the evolutions of
+Oriental cavalry.  But the life and soul of his party was the indomitable
+Muza.  With a rashness which seemed to the superstitious Spaniards like
+the safety of a man protected by magic, he spurred his ominous black barb
+into the very midst of the serried phalanx which Villena endeavoured to
+form around him, breaking the order by his single charge, and from time
+to time bringing to the dust some champion of the troop by the noiseless
+and scarce-seen edge of his fatal cimiter.
+
+Villena, in despair alike of fame and life, and gnawed with grief for his
+brother's loss, at length resolved to put the last hope of the battle on
+his single arm.  He gave the signal for retreat; and to protect his
+troop, remained himself, alone and motionless, on his horse, like a
+statue of iron.  Though not of large frame, he was esteemed the best
+swordsman, next only to Hernando del Pulgar and Gonsalvo de Cordova, in
+the army; practised alike in the heavy assault of the Christian warfare,
+and the rapid and dexterous exercise of the Moorish cavalry.  There he
+remained, alone and grim--a lion at bay--while his troops slowly
+retreated down the Vega, and their trumpets sounded loud signals of
+distress, and demands for succour, to such of their companions as might
+be within bearing.  Villena's armour defied the shafts of the Moors; and
+as one after one darted towards him, with whirling cimiter and momentary
+assault, few escaped with impunity from an eye equally quick and a weapon
+more than equally formidable.  Suddenly, a cloud of dust swept towards
+him; and Muza, a moment before at the further end of the field, came
+glittering through that cloud, with his white robe waving and his right
+arm bare.  Villena recognised him, set his teeth hard, and putting spurs
+to his charger, met the rush.  Muza swerved aside, just as the heavy
+falchion swung over his head, and by a back stroke of his own cimiter,
+shore through the cuirass just above the hip-joint, and the blood
+followed the blade.  The brave cavaliers saw the danger of their chief;
+three of their number darted forward, and came in time to separate the
+combatants.
+
+Muza stayed not to encounter the new reinforcement; but speeding across
+the plain, was soon seen rallying his own scattered cavalry, and pouring
+them down, in one general body, upon the scanty remnant of the Spaniards.
+
+"Our day is come!" said the good knight Villena, with bitter resignation.
+"Nothing is left for us, my friends, but to give up our lives--an example
+how Spanish warriors should live and die.  May God and the Holy Mother
+forgive our sins and shorten our purgatory!"
+
+Just as he spoke, a clarion was heard at a distance and the sharpened
+senses of the knights caught the ring of advancing hoofs.
+
+"We are saved!" cried Estevon de Suzon, rising on his stirrups.  While he
+spoke, the dashing stream of the Moorish horse broke over the little
+band; and Estevon beheld bent upon himself the dark eyes and quivering
+lip of Muza Ben Abil Gazan.  That noble knight had never, perhaps, till
+then known fear; but he felt his heart stand still, as he now stood
+opposed to that irresistible foe.
+
+"The dark fiend guides his blade!" thought De Suzon; "but I was shriven
+but yestermorn."  The thought restored his wonted courage; and he spurred
+on to meet the cimiter of the Moor.
+
+His assault took Muza by surprise.  The Moor's horse stumbled over the
+ground, cumbered with the dead and slippery with blood, and his uplifted
+cimiter could not do more than break the force of the gigantic arm of De
+Suzon; as the knight's falchion bearing down the cimiter, and alighting
+on the turban of the Mohammedan, clove midway through its folds, arrested
+only by the admirable temper of the links of steel which protected it.
+The shock hurled the Moor to the ground.  He rolled under the saddle-
+girths of his antagonist.
+
+"Victory and St. Jago!" cried  the  knight,  "Muza is--"
+
+The sentence was left eternally unfinished.  The blade of the fallen Moor
+had already pierced De Suzoii's horse through a mortal but undefended
+part.  It fell, bearing his rider with him.  A moment, and the two
+champions lay together grappling in the dust; in the next, the short
+knife which the Moor wore in his girdle had penetrated the Christian's
+visor, passing through the brain.
+
+To remount his steed, that remained at band, humbled and motionless, to
+appear again amongst the thickest of the fray, was a work no less rapidly
+accomplished than had been the slaughter of the unhappy Estevon de Suzon.
+But now the fortune of the day was stopped in a progress hitherto so
+triumphant to the Moors.
+
+Pricking fast over the plain were seen the glittering horsemen of the
+Christian reinforcements; and, at the remoter distance, the royal banner
+of Spain, indistinctly descried through volumes of dust, denoted that
+Ferdinand himself was advancing to the support of his cavaliers.
+
+The Moors, however, who had themselves received many and mysterious
+reinforcements, which seemed to spring up like magic from the bosom of
+the earth--so suddenly and unexpectedly had they emerged from copse and
+cleft in that mountainous and entangled neighbourhood--were not
+unprepared for a fresh foe.  At the command of the vigilant Muza, they
+drew off, fell into order, and, seizing, while yet there was time, the
+vantage-ground which inequalities of the soil and the shelter of the
+trees gave to their darts and agile horse, they presented an array which
+Ponce de Leon himself, who now arrived, deemed it more prudent not to
+assault.  While Villena, in accents almost inarticulate with rage, was
+urging the Marquess of Cadiz to advance, Ferdinand, surrounded by the
+flower of his court, arrived at the rear of the troops and after a few
+words interchanged with Ponce de Leon, gave the signal to retreat.
+
+When the Moors beheld that noble soldiery slowly breaking ground, and
+retiring towards the camp, even Muza could not control their ardour.
+They rushed forward, harassing the retreat of the Christians, and
+delaying the battle by various skirmishes.
+
+It was at this time that the headlong valour of Hernando del Pulgar, who
+had arrived with Ponce de Leon, distinguished itself in feats which yet
+live in the songs of Spain.  Mounted upon an immense steed, and himself
+of colossal strength, he was seen charging alone upon the assailants, and
+scattering numbers to the ground with the sweep of his enormous two-
+handed falchion.  With a loud voice, he called on Muza to oppose him; but
+the Moor, fatigued with slaughter, and scarcely recovered from the shock
+of his encounter with De Suzon, reserved so formidable a foe for a future
+contest.
+
+It was at this juncture, while the field was covered with straggling
+skirmishers, that a small party of Spaniards, in cutting their way to the
+main body of their countrymen through one of the numerous copses held by
+the enemy, fell in at the outskirt with an equal number of Moors, and
+engaged them in a desperate conflict, hand to hand.  Amidst the infidels
+was one man who took no part in the affray: at a little distance, he
+gazed for a few moments upon the fierce and relentless slaughter of Moor
+and Christian with a smile of stern and complacent delight; and then
+taking advantage of the general confusion, rode gently, and, as he hoped,
+unobserved, away from the scene.  But he was not destined so quietly to
+escape.  A Spaniard perceived him, and, from something strange and
+unusual in his garb, judged him one of the Moorish leaders; and presently
+Almamen, for it was he, beheld before him the uplifted falchion of a foe
+neither disposed to give quarter nor to hear parley.  Brave though the
+Israelite was, many reasons concurred to prevent his taking a personal
+part against the soldier of Spain; and seeing he should have no chance of
+explanation, he fairly puts spurs to his horse, and galloped across the
+plain.  The Spaniard followed, gained upon him, and Almamen at length
+turned, in despair and the wrath of his haughty nature.
+
+"Have thy will, fool!" said he, between his grinded teeth, as he griped
+his dagger and prepared for the conflict.  It was long and obstinate, for
+the Spaniard was skilful; and the Hebrew wearing no mail, and without any
+weapon more formidable than a sharp and well-tempered dagger, was forced
+to act cautiously on the defensive.  At length the combatants grappled,
+and, by a dexterous thrust, the short blade of Almamen pierced the throat
+of his antagonist, who fell prostrate to the ground.
+
+"I am safe," he thought, as he wheeled round his horse; when lo! the
+Spaniards he had just left behind, and who had now routed their
+antagonists, were upon him.
+
+"Yield, or die!" cried the leader of the troop.
+
+Almamen glared round; no succour was at hand.  "I am not your enemy,"
+said he, sullenly, throwing down his weapon--"bear me to your camp."
+
+A trooper seized his rein, and, scouring along, the Spaniards soon
+reached the retreating army.
+
+Meanwhile the evening darkened, the shout and the roar grew gradually
+less loud and loud---the battle had ceased--the stragglers had joined
+their several standards and, by the light of the first star, the Moorish
+force, bearing their wounded brethren, and elated with success,
+re-entered the gates of Granada, as the black charger of the hero of the
+day, closing the rear of the cavalry, disappeared within the gloomy
+portals.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE HERO IN THE POWER OF THE DREAMER.
+
+It was in the same chamber, and nearly at the same hour, in which we
+first presented to the reader Boabdil el Chico, that we are again
+admitted to the presence of that ill-starred monarch.  He was not alone.
+His favourite slave, Amine, reclined upon the ottomans, gazing with
+anxious love upon his thoughtful countenance, as he leant against the
+glittering wall by the side of the casement, gazing abstractedly on the
+scene below.
+
+From afar he heard the shouts of the populace at the return of Muza, and
+bursts of artillery confirmed the tidings of triumph which had already
+been borne to his ear.
+
+"May the king live for ever!" said Amine, timidly; "his armies have gone
+forth to conquer."
+
+"But without their king," replied  Boabdil,  bitterly, and headed by a
+traitor and a foe.  I am meshed in the nets of an inextricable fate!"
+
+"Oh!" said the slave, with sudden energy, as, clasping her hands, she
+rose from her couch,--"oh, my lord, would that these humble lips dared
+utter other words than those of love!"
+
+"And what wise counsel would they give me?" asked Boabdil with a faint
+smile.  "Speak on."
+
+"I will obey thee, then, even if it displease," cried Amine; and she
+rose, her cheek glowing, her eyes spark ling, her beautiful form dilated.
+"I am a daughter of Granada; I am the beloved of a king; I will be true
+to my birth and to my fortunes.  Boabdil el Chico, the last of a line of
+heroes, shake off these gloomy fantasies--these doubts and dreams that
+smother the fire of a great nature and a kingly soul!  Awake--arise--rob
+Granada of her Muza--be thyself her Muza!  Trustest thou to magic and to
+spells? then grave them on they breastplate, write them on thy sword, and
+live no longer the Dreamer of the Alhambra; become the saviour of thy
+people!"
+
+Boabdil turned, and gazed on the inspired and beautiful form before him
+with mingled emotions of surprise and shame.  "Out of the mouth of woman
+cometh my rebuke!" said he sadly.  "It is well!"
+
+"Pardon me, pardon me!" said the slave, falling humbly at his knees; "but
+blame me not that I would have thee worthy of thyself.  Wert thou not
+happier, was not thy heart more light and thy hope more strong when, at
+the head of thine armies, thine own cimiter slew thine own foes, and the
+terror of the Hero-king spread, in flame and slaughter, from the
+mountains to the seas.  Boabdil! dear as thou art to me-equally as I
+would have loved thee hadst thou been born a lowly fisherman of the
+Darro, since thou art a king, I would have thee die a king; even if my
+own heart broke as I armed thee for thy latest battle!"
+
+"Thou knowest not what thou sayest, Amine," said Boabdil, "nor canst thou
+tell what spirits that are not of earth dictate to the actions and watch
+over the destinies, of the rulers of nations.  If I delay, if I linger,
+it is not from terror, but from wisdom.  The cloud must gather on, dark
+and slow, ere the moment for the thunderbolt arrives."
+
+"On thine own house will the thunderbolt fall, since over thine own house
+thou sufferest the cloud to gather," said a calm and stern voice.
+
+Boabdil started; and in the chamber stood a third person, in the shape of
+a woman, past middle age, and of commanding port and stature.  Upon her
+long-descending robes of embroidered purple were thickly woven jewels of
+royal price, and her dark hair, slightly tinged with grey, parted over a
+majestic brow while a small diadem surmounted the folds of the turban.
+
+"My mother!" said Boabdil, with some haughty reserve in his tone; "your
+presence is unexpected."
+
+"Ay," answered Ayxa la Horra, for it was indeed that celebrated, and
+haughty, and high-souled queen, "and unwelcome; so is ever that of your
+true friends.  But not thus unwelcome was the presence of your mother,
+when her brain and her hand delivered you from the dungeon in which your
+stern father had cast your youth, and the dagger and the bowl seemed the
+only keys that would unlock the cell."
+
+"And better hadst thou left the ill-omened son that thy womb conceived,
+to die thus in youth, honoured and lamented, than to live to manhood,
+wrestling against an evil star and a relentless fate."
+
+"Son," said the queen, gazing upon him with lofty and half disdainful
+compassion, "men's conduct shapes out their own fortunes, and the unlucky
+are never the valiant and the wise."
+
+"Madam," said Boabdil, colouring with passion, "I am still a king, nor
+will I be thus bearded--withdraw!"
+
+Ere the queen could reply, a eunuch entered, and whispered Boabdil.
+
+"Ha!" said he, joyfully, stamping his foot, "comes he then to brave the
+lion in his den?  Let the rebel look to it.  Is he alone?"
+
+"Alone, great king."
+
+"Bid my guards wait without; let the slightest signal summon them.
+Amine, retire!  Madam--"
+
+"Son!" interrupted Ayxa la Horra in visible agitation, "do I guess
+aright? is the brave Muza--the sole bulwark and hope of Granada--whom
+unjustly thou wouldst last night have placed in chains--(chains! Great
+Prophet! is it thus a king should reward his heroes)--is, I say, Muza
+here? and wilt thou make him the victim of his own generous trust?"
+
+"Retire, woman?" said Boabdil, sullenly.
+
+"I will not, save by force!  I resisted a fiercer soul than thine when I
+saved thee from thy father."
+
+"Remain, then, if thou wilt, and learn how kings can punish traitors.
+Mesnour, admit the hero of Granada."  Amine had vanished.  Boabdil seated
+himself on the cushions his face calm but pale.  The queen stood erect at
+a little distance, her arms folded on her breast, and her aspect knit and
+resolute.  In a few moments Muza entered alone.  He approached the king
+with the profound salutation of oriental obeisance; and then stood before
+him with downcast eyes, in an attitude from which respect could not
+divorce a natural dignity and pride of mien.
+
+"Prince," said Boabdil, after a moment's pause, "yestermorn, when I sent
+for thee thou didst brave my orders.  Even in mine own Alhambra thy
+minions broke out in mutiny; they surrounded the fortress in which thou
+wert to wait my pleasure; they intercepted, they insulted, they drove
+back my guards; they stormed the towers protected by the banner of thy
+king.  The governor, a coward or a traitor, rendered thee to the
+rebellious crowd.  Was this all?  No, by the Prophet!  Thou, by right my
+captive, didst leave thy prison but to head mine armies.  And this day,
+the traitor subject--the secret foe--was the leader of a people who defy
+a king.  This night thou comest to me unsought.  Thou feelest secure from
+my just wrath, even in my palace.  Thine insolence blinds and betrays
+thee.  Man, thou art in my power!  Ho, there!"
+
+As the king spoke, he rose; and, presently, the arcades at the back of
+the pavilion were darkened by long lines of the Ethiopian guard, each of
+height which, beside the slight Moorish race, appeared gigantic; stolid
+and passionless machines, to execute, without thought, the bloodiest or
+the slightest caprice of despotism.  There they stood; their silver
+breastplates and long earrings contrasting their dusky skins; and
+bearing, over their shoulders, immense clubs studded with brazen nails.
+
+A little advanced from the rest, stood the captain, with the fatal
+bowstring hanging carelessly on his arm, and his eyes intent to catch the
+slightest gesture of the king.  "Behold!" said Boabdil to his prisoner.
+
+"I do; and am prepared for what I have foreseen."  The queen grew pale,
+but continued silent.
+
+Muza resumed--
+
+"Lord of the faithful!" said he, "if yestermorn I had acted otherwise, it
+would have been to the ruin of thy throne and our common race.  The
+fierce Zegris suspected and learned my capture.  They summoned the troops
+they delivered me, it is true.  At that time had I reasoned with them, it
+would have been as drops upon a flame.  They were bent on besieging thy
+palace, perhaps upon demanding thy abdication.  I could not stifle their
+fury, but I could direct it.  In the moment of passion, I led them from
+rebellion against our common king to victory against our common foe.
+That duty done, I come unscathed from the sword of the Christian to bare
+my neck to the bowstring of my friend.  Alone, untracked, unsuspected, I
+have entered thy palace to prove to the sovereign of Granada, that the
+defendant of his throne is not a rebel to his will.  Now summon the
+guards--I have done."
+
+"Muza!" said Boabdil, in a softened voice, while he shaded his face with
+his hand, "we played together as children, and I have loved thee well: my
+kingdom even now, perchance, is passing from me, but I could almost be
+reconciled to that loss, if I thought thy loyalty had not left me."
+
+"Dost thou, in truth, suspect the faith of Muza Ben Abil Gazan?" said the
+Moorish prince, in a tone of surprise and sorrow.  "Unhappy king!  I
+deemed that my services, and not my defection, made my crime."
+
+"Why do my people hate me? why do my armies menace?" said Boabdil,
+evasively; "why should a subject possess that allegiance which a king
+cannot obtain?"
+
+"Because," replied Muza, boldly, "the king has delegated to a subject the
+command he should himself assume.  Oh, Boabdil!" he continued,
+passionately--"friend of my boyhood, ere the evil days came upon us,--
+gladly would I sink to rest beneath the dark waves of yonder river, if
+thy arm and brain would fill up my place amongst the warriors of Granada.
+And think not I say this only from our boyish love; think not I have
+placed my life in thy hands only from that servile loyalty to a single
+man, which the false chivalry of Christendom imposes as a sacred creed
+upon its knights and nobles.  But I speak and act but from one principle
+--to save the religion of, my father and the land of my birth: for this I
+have risked my life against the foe; for this I surrender my life to the
+sovereign of my country.  Granada may yet survive, if monarch and people
+unite together.  Granada is lost for ever, if her children, at this fatal
+hour, are divided against themselves.  If, then, I, O Boabdil! am the
+true obstacle to thy league with thine own subjects, give me at once to
+the bowstring, and my sole prayer shall be for the last remnant of the
+Moorish name, and the last monarch of the Moorish dynasty."
+
+"My son, my son! art thou convinced at last?" cried the queen, struggling
+with her tears; for she was one who wept easily at heroic sentiments, but
+never at the softer sorrows, or from the more womanly emotions.
+
+Boabdil lifted his head with a vain and momentary attempt at pride; his
+eye glanced from his mother to his friend, and his better feelings gushed
+upon him with irresistible force; he threw himself into Muza's arms.
+
+"Forgive me," he said, in broken accents, "forgive me!  How could I have
+wronged thee thus?  Yes," he continued, as he started from the noble
+breast on which for a moment he indulged no ungenerous weakness,--"yes,
+prince, your example shames, but it fires me.  Granada henceforth shall
+have two chieftains; and if I be jealous of thee, it shall be from an
+emulation thou canst not blame.  Guards, retire.  Mesnour! ho, Mesnour!
+Proclaim at daybreak that I myself will review the troops in the
+Vivarrambla.  Yet"--and, as he spoke his voice faltered, and his brow
+became overcast, "yet stay, seek me thyself at daybreak, and I will give
+thee my commands."
+
+"Oh, my son! why hesitate?" cried the queen, "why waver?  Prosecute thine
+own kingly designs, and--"
+
+"Hush, madam," said Boabdil, regaining his customary cold composure; "and
+since you are now satisfied with your son, leave me alone with Muza."
+
+The queen sighed heavily; but there was something in the calm of Boabdil
+which chilled and awed her more than his bursts of passion.  She drew her
+veil around her, and passed slowly and reluctantly from the chamber.
+
+"Muza," said Boabdil, when alone with the prince, and fixing his large
+and thoughtful eyes upon the dark orbs of his companion,--"when, in our
+younger days, we conversed together, do you remember how often that
+converse turned upon those solemn and mysterious themes to which the
+sages of our ancestral land directed their deepest lore; the enigmas of
+the stars--the science of fate--the wild searches into the clouded
+future, which hides the destines of nations and of men?  Thou
+rememberest, Muza, that to such studies mine own vicissitudes and
+sorrows, even in childhood--the strange fortunes which gave me in my
+cradle the epithet of El Zogoybi--the ominous predictions of santons and
+astrologers as to the trials of my earthly fate,--all contributed to
+incline my soul.  Thou didst not despise those earnest musings, nor our
+ancestral lore, though, unlike me, ever more inclined to action than to
+contemplation, that which thou mightest believe had little influence upon
+what thou didst design.  With me it hath been otherwise; every event of
+life hath conspired to feed my early prepossessions; and, in this awful
+crisis of my fate, I have placed myself and my throne rather under the
+guardianship of spirits than of men.  This alone has reconciled me to
+inaction--to the torpor of the Alhambra--to the mutinies of my people.
+I have smiled, when foes surround and friends deserted me, secure of the
+aid at last--if I bided but the fortunate hour--of the charms of
+protecting spirits, and the swords of the invisible creation.  Thou
+wonderest what this should lead to.  Listen!  Two nights since (and the
+king shuddered) I was with the dead!  My father appeared before me--not
+as I knew him in life--gaunt and terrible, full of the vigour of health,
+and the strength of kingly empire, and of fierce passion--but wan, calm,
+shadowy.  From lips on which Azrael had set his livid seal, he bade me
+beware of thee!"
+
+The king ceased suddenly; and sought to read on the face of Muza the
+effect his words produced.  But the proud and swarthy features of the
+Moor evinced no pang of conscience; a slight smile of pity might have
+crossed his lip for a moment, but it vanished ere the king could detect
+it.  Boabdil continued:
+
+"Under the influence of this warning, I issued the order for thy arrest.
+Let this pass--I resume my tale.  I attempted to throw myself at the
+spectre's feet--it glided from me, motionless and impalpable.  I asked
+the Dead One if he forgave his unhappy son the sin of rebellion alas!
+too well requited even upon earth.  And the voice again came forth, and
+bade me keep the crown that I had gained, as the sole atonement for the
+past.  Then again I asked, whether the hour for action had arrived! and
+the spectre, while it faded gradually into air, answered, 'No!'  'Oh!' I
+exclaimed, 'ere thou leavest me, be one sign accorded me, that I have not
+dreamt this vision; and give me, I pray thee, note and warning, when the
+evil star of Boabdil shall withhold its influence, and he may strike,
+without resistance from the Powers above, for his glory and his throne.'
+'The sign and the warning are bequeathed thee,' answered the ghostly
+image.  It vanished,--thick darkness fell around; and, when once more the
+light of the lamps we bore became visible, behold there stood before me
+a skeleton, in the regal robe of the kings of Granada, and on its grisly
+head was the imperial diadem.  With one hand raised, it pointed to the
+opposite wall, wherein burned, like an orb of gloomy fire, a broad dial-
+plate, on which were graven these words, BEWARE--FEAR NOT--ARM!  The
+finger of the dial moved rapidly round, and rested at the word beware.
+From that hour to the one in which I last beheld it, it hath not moved.
+Muza, the tale is done; wilt thou visit with me this enchanted chamber,
+and see if the hour be come?"
+
+"Commander of the faithful," said Muza, "the story is dread and awful.
+But pardon thy friend--wert thou alone, or was the santon Almamen thy
+companion?"
+
+"Why the  question?" said  Boabdil, evasively, and slightly colouring.
+
+"I fear his truth," answered Muza; "the Christian king conquers more foes
+by craft than force; and his spies are more deadly than his warriors.
+Wherefore this caution against me, but (pardon me) for thine own undoing?
+Were I a traitor, could Ferdinand himself have endangered thy crown so
+imminently as the revenge of the leader of thine own armies?  Why, too,
+this desire to keep thee inactive?  For the brave every hour hath its
+chances; but, for us, every hour increases our peril.  If we seize not
+the present time,--our supplies are cut off,--and famine is a foe all our
+valour cannot resist.  This dervise--who is he? a stranger, not of our
+race and blood.  But this morning I found him without the walls, not far
+from the Spaniard's camp."
+
+"Ha!" cried the king, quickly, "and what said he?"
+
+"Little, but in hints; sheltering himself, by loose hints, under thy
+name."
+
+"He! what dared he own?--Muza, what were those hints?"
+
+The Moor here recounted the interview with Almamen, his detention, his
+inactivity in the battle, and his subsequent capture by the Spaniards.
+The king listened attentively, and regained his composure.
+
+"It is a strange and awful man," said he after a pause.  "Guards and
+chains will not detain him.  Ere long he will return.  But thou, at
+least, Muza, are henceforth free, alike from the suspicion of the living
+and the warnings of the dead.  No, my friend," continued Boabdil, with
+generous warmth, "it is better to lose a crown, to lose life itself, than
+confidence in a heart like thine.  Come, let us inspect this magic
+tablet; perchance--and how my heart bounds as I utter the hope!--the hour
+may have arrived."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A FULLER VIEW OF THE CHARACTER OF BOABDIL.--MUZA IN THE GARDENS OF HIS
+BELOVED.
+
+Muza Ben Abil Gazan returned from his visit to Boabdil with a thoughtful
+and depressed spirit.  His arguments had failed to induce the king to
+disdain the command of the magic dial, which still forbade him to arm
+against the invaders; and although the royal favour was no longer
+withdrawn from himself, the Moor felt that such favour hung upon a
+capricious and uncertain tenure so long as his sovereign was the slave of
+superstition or imposture.  But that noble warrior, whose character the
+adversity of his country had singularly exalted and refined, even while
+increasing its natural fierceness, thought little of himself in
+comparison with the evils and misfortunes which the king's continued
+irresolution must bring upon Granada.
+
+"So brave, and yet so weak," thought he; "so weak, and yet so obstinate;
+so wise a reasoner, yet so credulous a dupe!  Unhappy Boabdil! the stars,
+indeed, seem to fight against thee, and their influences at thy birth
+marred all thy gifts and virtues with counteracting infirmity and error."
+
+Muza,--more perhaps than any subject in Granada,--did justice to the real
+character of the king; but even he was unable to penetrate all its
+complicated and latent mysteries.  Boabdil el Chico was no ordinary man;
+his affections were warm and generous, his nature calm and gentle; and,
+though early power, and the painful experience of a mutinous people and
+ungrateful court, had imparted to that nature an irascibility of temper
+and a quickness of suspicion foreign to its earlier soil, he was easily
+led back to generosity and justice; and, if warm in resentment, was
+magnanimous in forgiveness.  Deeply accomplished in all the learning of
+his race and time, he was--in books, at least--a philosopher; and,
+indeed, his attachment to the abstruser studies was one of the main
+causes which unfitted him for his present station.  But it was the
+circumstances attendant on his birth and childhood that had perverted his
+keen and graceful intellect to morbid indulgence in mystic reveries, and
+all the doubt, fear, and irresolution of a man who pushes metaphysics
+into the supernatural world.  Dark prophecies accumulated omens over his
+head; men united in considering him born to disastrous destinies.
+Whenever he had sought to wrestle against hostile circumstances, some
+seemingly accidental cause, sudden and unforeseen, had blasted the
+labours of his most vigorous energy,--the fruit of his most deliberate
+wisdom.  Thus, by degrees a gloomy and despairing cloud settled over his
+mind; but, secretly sceptical of the Mohammedan creed, and too proud and
+sanguine to resign himself wholly and passively to the doctrine of
+inevitable predestination, he sought to contend against the machinations
+of hostile demons and boding stars, not by human but spiritual agencies.
+Collecting around him the seers and magicians of orient-fanaticism, he
+lived in the visions of another world; and, flattered by the promises of
+impostors or dreamers, and deceived by his own subtle and brooding
+tendencies of mind, it was amongst spells and cabala that he thought to
+draw forth the mighty secret which was to free him from the meshes of the
+preternatural enemies of his fortune, and leave him the freedom of other
+men to wrestle, with equal chances, against peril and adversities.  It
+was thus, that Almamen had won the mastery over his mind; and, though
+upon matters of common and earthly import, or solid learning, Boabdil
+could contend with sages, upon those of superstition he could be fooled
+by a child.  He was, in this, a kind of Hamlet: formed, under prosperous
+and serene fortunes, to render blessings and reap renown; but over whom
+the chilling shadow of another world had fallen--whose soul curdled back
+into itself--whose life had been separated from that of the herd--whom
+doubts and awe drew back, while circumstances impelled onward--whom a
+supernatural doom invested with a peculiar philosophy, not of human
+effect and cause--and who, with every gift that could ennoble and adorn,
+was suddenly palsied into that mortal imbecility, which is almost ever
+the result of mortal visitings into the haunted regions of the Ghostly
+and Unknown.  The gloomier colourings of his mind had been deepened, too,
+by secret remorse.  For the preservation of his own life, constantly
+threatened by his unnatural predecessor, he had been early driven into
+rebellion against his father.  In age, infirmity, and blindness, that
+fierce king had been made a prisoner at Salobrena by his brother, El
+Zagal, Boabdil's partner in rebellion; and dying suddenly, El Zagal was
+suspected of his murder.  Though Boabdil was innocent of such a crime,
+he felt himself guilty of the causes which led to it; and a dark memory,
+resting upon his conscience, served to augment his superstition and
+enervate the vigour of his resolves; for, of all things that make men
+dreamers, none is so effectual as remorse operating upon a thoughtful
+temperament.
+
+Revolving the character of his sovereign, and sadly foreboding the ruin
+of his country, the young hero of Granada pursued his way, until his
+steps, almost unconsciously, led him towards the abode of Leila.  He
+scaled the walls of the garden as before--he neared the house.  All was
+silent and deserted; his signal was unanswered--his murmured song brought
+no grateful light to the lattice, no fairy footstep to the balcony.
+Dejected, and sad of heart, he retired from the spot; and, returning
+home, sought a couch, to which even all the fatigue and excitement he had
+undergone, could not win the forgetfulness of slumber.  The mystery that
+wrapt the maiden of his homage, the rareness of their interviews, and the
+wild and poetical romance that made a very principle of the chivalry of
+the Spanish Moors, had imparted to Muza's love for Leila a passionate
+depth, which, at this day, and in more enervated climes, is unknown to
+the Mohammedan lover.  His keenest inquiries had been unable to pierce
+the secret of her birth and station.  Little of the inmates of that
+guarded and lonely house was known in the neighbourhood; the only one
+ever seen without its walls was an old man of the Jewish faith, supposed
+to be a superintendent of the foreign slaves (for no Mohammedan slave
+would have been subjected to the insult of submission to a Jew); and
+though there were rumours of the vast wealth and gorgeous luxury within
+the mansion, it was supposed the abode of some Moorish emir absent from
+the city--and the interest of the gossips was at this time absorbed in
+more weighty matters than the affairs of a neighbour.  But when, the next
+eve, and the next, Muza returned to the spot equally in vain, his
+impatience and alarm could no longer be restrained; he resolved to lie in
+watch by the portals of the house night and day, until, at least, he
+could discover some one of the inmates, whom he could question of his
+love, and perhaps bribe to his service.  As with this resolution he was
+hovering round the mansion, he beheld, stealing from a small door in one
+of the low wings of the house, a bended and decrepit form: it supported
+its steps upon a staff; and, as now entering the garden, it stooped by
+the side of a fountain to cull flowers and herbs by the light of the
+moon, the Moor almost started to behold a countenance which resembled
+that of some ghoul or vampire haunting the places of the dead.  He smiled
+at his own fear; and, with a quick and stealthy pace, hastened through
+the trees, and, gaining the spot where the old man bent, placed his hand
+on his shoulder ere his presence was perceived.
+
+Ximen--for it was he--looked round eagerly, and a faint cry of terror
+broke from his lips.
+
+"Hush!" said the Moor; "fear me not, I am a friend.  Thou art old, man--
+gold is ever welcome to the aged."  As he spoke, he dropped several broad
+pieces into the breast of the Jew, whose ghastly features gave forth a
+yet more ghastly smile, as he received the gift, and mumbled forth,
+
+"Charitable young man!  generous, benevolent, excellent young man!"
+
+"Now then," said Muza, "tell me--you belong to this house--Leila, the
+maiden within--tell me of her--is she well?"
+
+"I trust so," returned the Jew; "I trust so, noble master."
+
+"Trust so! know you not of her state?"
+
+"Not I; for many nights I have not seen her, excellent sir," answered
+Ximen; "she hath left Granada, she hath gone.  You waste your time and
+mar your precious health amidst these nightly dews: they are unwholesome,
+very unwholesome at the time of the new moon."
+
+"Gone!" echoed the Moor; "left Granada!--woe is me!--and whither?--there,
+there, more gold for you,--old man, tell me whither?"
+
+"Alas! I know not, most magnanimous young man; I am but a servant--I know
+nothing."
+
+"When will she return?"
+
+"I cannot tell thee."
+
+"Who is thy master? who owns yon mansion?"
+
+Ximen's countenance fell; he looked round in doubt and fear, and then,
+after a short pause, answered,--"A wealthy man, good sir--a Moor of
+Africa; but he hath also gone; he but seldom visits us; Granada is not so
+peaceful a residence as it was,--I would go too, if I could."
+
+Muza released his hold of Ximen, who gazed at the Moor's working
+countenance with a malignant smile--for Ximen hated all men.
+
+"Thou hast done with me, young warrior?  Pleasant dreams to thee under
+the new moon--thou hadst best retire to thy bed.  Farewell! bless thy
+charity to the poor old man!"
+
+Muza heard him not; he remained motionless for some moments; and then
+with a heavy sigh as that of one who has gained the mastery of himself
+after a bitter struggle, the said half aloud, "Allah be with thee, Leila!
+Granada now is my only mistress."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BOABDIL'S RECONCILIATION WITH HIS PEOPLE.
+
+Several days had elapsed without any encounter between Moor and
+Christian; for Ferdinand's cold and sober policy, warned by the loss he
+had sustained in the ambush of Muza, was now bent on preserving rigorous
+restraint upon the fiery spirits he commanded.  He forbade all parties of
+skirmish, in which the Moors, indeed, had usually gained the advantage,
+and contented himself with occupying all the passes through which
+provisions could arrive at the besieged city.  He commenced strong
+fortifications around his camp; and, forbidding assault on the Moors,
+defied it against himself.
+
+Meanwhile, Almamen had not returned to Granada.  No tidings of his fate
+reached the king; and his prolonged disappearance began to produce
+visible and salutary effect upon the long-dormant energies of Boabdil.
+The counsels of Muza, the exhortations of the queen-mother, the
+enthusiasm of his mistress, Amine, uncounteracted by the arts of the
+magician, aroused the torpid lion of his nature.  But still his army and
+his subjects murmured against him; and his appearance in the Vivarrambla
+might possibly be the signal of revolt.  It was at this time that a most
+fortunate circumstance at once restored to him the confidence and
+affections of his people.  His stern uncle, El Zagal--once a rival for
+his crown, and whose daring valour, mature age, and military sagacity had
+won him a powerful party within the city--had been, some months since,
+conquered by Ferdinand; and, in yielding the possessions he held, had
+been rewarded with a barren and dependent principality.  His defeat, far
+from benefiting Boabdil, had exasperated the Moors against their king.
+"For," said they, almost with one voice, "the brave El Zagal never would
+have succumbed had Boabdil properly supported his arms."  And it was the
+popular discontent and rage at El Zagal's defeat which had indeed served
+Boabdil with a reasonable excuse for shutting himself in the strong
+fortress of the Alhambra.  It now happened that El Zagal, whose dominant
+passion was hatred of his nephew, and whose fierce nature chafed at its
+present cage, resolved in his old age to blast all his former fame by a
+signal treason to his country.  Forgetting everything but revenge against
+his nephew, who he was resolved should share his own ruin, he armed his
+subjects, crossed the country, and appeared at the head of a gallant
+troop in the Spanish camp, an ally with Ferdinand against Granada.  When
+this was heard by the Moors, it is impossible to conceive their indignant
+wrath: the crime of El Zagal produced an instantaneous reaction in favour
+of Boabdil; the crowd surrounded the Alhambra and with prayers and tears
+entreated the forgiveness of the king.  This event completed the conquest
+of Boabdil over his own irresolution.  He ordained an assembly of the
+whole army in the broad space of the Vivarrambla: and when at break of
+day he appeared in full armour in the square, with Muza at his right
+hand, himself in the flower of youthful beauty, and proud to feel once
+more a hero and a king, the joy of the people knew no limit; the air was
+rent with cries of "Long live Boabdil el Chico!" and the young monarch,
+turning to Muza, with his soul upon his brow exclaimed, "The hour has
+come--I am no longer El Zogoybi!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+LEILA.--HER NEW LOVER.--PORTRAIT OF THE FIRST INQUISITOR OF SPAIN.--THE
+CHALICE RETURNED TO THE LIPS OF ALMAMEN.
+
+While thus the state of events within Granada, the course of our story
+transports us back to the Christian camp.  It was in one of a long line
+of tents that skirted the pavilion of Isabel, and was appropriated to the
+ladies attendant on the royal presence, that a young female sat alone.
+The dusk of evening already gathered around, and only the outline of her
+form and features was visible.  But even that, imperfectly seen,--the
+dejected attitude of the form, the drooping head, the hands clasped upon
+the knees,--might have sufficed to denote the melancholy nature of the
+reverie which the maid indulged.
+
+"Ah," thought she, "to what danger am I exposed!  If my father, if my
+lover dreamed of the persecution to which their poor Leila is abandoned!"
+
+A few tears, large and bitter, broke from her eyes, and stole unheeded
+down her cheek.  At that moment, the deep and musical chime of a bell was
+heard summoning the chiefs of the army to prayer; for Ferdinand invested
+all his worldly schemes with a religious covering, and to his politic war
+he sought to give the imposing character of a sacred crusade.
+
+"That sound," thought she, sinking on her knees, "summons the Nazarenes
+to the presence of their God.  It reminds me, a captive by the waters of
+Babylon, that God is ever with the friendless.  Oh! succour and defend
+me, Thou who didst look of old upon Ruth standing amidst the corn, and
+didst watch over Thy chosen people in the hungry wilderness, and in the
+stranger's land."
+
+Wrapt in her mute and passionate devotions, Leila remained long in her
+touching posture.  The bell had ceased; all without was hushed and still
+--when the drapery, stretched across the opening of the tent, was lifted,
+and a young Spaniard, cloaked, from head to foot, in a long mantle, stood
+within the space.  He gazed in silence, upon the kneeling maiden; nor was
+it until she rose that he made his presence audible.
+
+"Ah, fairest!" said he, then, as he attempted to take her hand, "thou
+wilt not answer my letters--see me, then, at thy feet.  It is thou who
+teachest me to kneel."
+
+"You, prince."  said Leila, agitated, and in great and evident fear.
+"Why harass and insult me thus?  Am I not sacred as a hostage and a
+charge? and are name, honour, peace, and all that woman is taught to
+hold most dear, to be thus robbed from me under the pretext of a love
+dishonouring to thee and an insult to myself?"
+
+"Sweet one," answered Don Juan, with a slight laugh, "thou hast learned,
+within yonder walls, a creed of morals little known to Moorish maidens,
+if fame belies them not.  Suffer me to teach thee easier morality and
+sounder logic.  It is no dishonour to a Christian prince to adore beauty
+like thine; it is no insult to a maiden hostage if the Infant of Spain
+proffer her the homage of his heart.  But we waste time.  Spies, and
+envious tongues, and vigilant eyes, are around us; and it is not often
+that I can baffle them as I have done now.  Fairest, hear me!" and this
+time he succeeded in seizing the hand which vainly struggled against his
+clasp.  "Nay, why so coy? what can female heart desire that my love
+cannot shower upon thine?  Speak but the word, enchanting maiden, and I
+will bear thee from these scenes unseemly to thy gentle eyes.  Amidst the
+pavilions of princes shalt thou repose; and, amidst gardens of the orange
+and the rose, shalt thou listen to the vows of thine adorer.  Surely, in
+these arms thou wilt not pine for a barbarous home and a fated city.  And
+if thy pride, sweet maiden, deafen thee to the voice of nature, learn
+that the haughtiest dames of Spain would bend, in envious court, to the
+beloved of their future king.  This night--listen to me--I say, listen--
+this night I will bear thee hence!  Be but mine, and no matter, whether
+heretic or infidel, or whatever the priests style thee, neither Church
+nor king shall tear thee from the bosom of thy lover."
+
+"It is well spoken, son of the most Christian monarch!" said a deep
+voice; and the Dominican, Tomas de Torquemada, stood before the prince.
+
+Juan, as if struck by a thunderbolt, released his hold, and, staggering
+back a few paces, seemed to cower, abashed and humbled, before the eye of
+the priest, as it glared upon him through the gathering darkness.
+
+"Prince," said the friar, after a pause, "not to thee will our holy
+Church attribute this crime; thy pious heart hath been betrayed by
+sorcery.  Retire!"
+
+"Father," said the prince,--in a tone into which, despite his awe of that
+terrible man, THE FIRST GRAND INQUISITOR OF SPAIN, his libertine spirit
+involuntarily forced itself, in a half latent raillery,--"sorcery of eyes
+like those bewitched the wise son of a more pious sire than even
+Ferdinand of Arragon."
+
+"He blasphemes!" muttered the monk.  "Prince, beware! you know not what
+you do."
+
+The prince lingered, and then, as if aware that he must yield, gathered
+his cloak round him, and left the tent without reply.
+
+Pale and trembling,--with fears no less felt, perhaps, though more vague
+and perplexed, than those from which she had just been delivered,--Leila
+stood before the monk.
+
+"Be seated, daughter of the faithless," said Torquemada, "we would
+converse with thee: and, as thou valuest--I say not thy soul, for, alas!
+of that precious treasure thou art not conscious--but mark me, woman! as
+thou prizest the safety of those delicate limbs, and that wanton beauty,
+answer truly what I shall ask thee.  The man who brought thee hither--is
+he, in truth, thy father?"
+
+"Alas!" answered Leila, almost fainting with terror at this rude and
+menacing address, "he is, in truth, mine only parent."
+
+"And his faith--his religion?"
+
+"I have never beheld him pray."
+
+"Hem! he never prays--a noticeable fact.  But of what sect, what creed,
+does he profess himself?"
+
+"I cannot answer thee."
+
+"Nay, there be means that may wring from thee an answer.  Maiden, be not
+so stubborn; speak! thinkest thou he serves the temple of the
+Mohammedan?"
+
+"No! oh, no!" answered poor Leila, eagerly, deeming that her reply, in
+this, at least, would be acceptable.  "He disowns, he scorns, he abhors,
+the Moorish faith,--even," she added, "with too fierce a zeal."
+
+"Thou dost not share that zeal, then?  Well, worships he in secret after
+the Christian rites?"
+
+Leila hung her head and answered not.
+
+"I understand thy silence.  And in what belief, maiden, wert thou reared
+beneath his roof?"
+
+"I know not what it is called among men," answered Leila, with firmness,
+"but it is the faith of the ONE GOD, who protects His chosen, and shall
+avenge their wrongs--the God who made earth and heaven; and who, in an
+idolatrous and benighted world, transmitted the knowledge of Himself and
+His holy laws, from age to age, through the channel of one solitary
+people, in the plains of Palestine, and by the waters of the Hebron."
+
+"And in that faith thou wert trained, maiden, by thy father?" said the
+Dominican, calmly.  "I am satisfied.  Rest here, in peace: we may meet
+again, soon."
+
+The last words were spoken with a soft and tranquil smile--a smile in
+which glazing eyes and agonising hearts had often beheld the ghastly omen
+of the torture and the stake.
+
+On quitting the unfortunate Leila, the monk took his way towards the
+neighbouring tent of Ferdinand.  But, ere he reached it, a new thought
+seemed to strike the holy man; he altered the direction of his steps, and
+gained one of those little shrines common in Catholic countries, and
+which had been hastily built of wood, in the centre of a small copse, and
+by the side of a brawling rivulet, towards the back of the king's
+pavilion.  But one solitary sentry, at the entrance of the copse, guarded
+the consecrated place; and its exceeding loneliness and quiet were a
+grateful contrast to the animated world of the surrounding camp.  The
+monk entered the shrine, and fell down on his knees before an image of
+the Virgin, rudely sculptured, indeed, but richly decorated.
+
+"Ah, Holy Mother!" groaned this singular man, "support me in the trial to
+which I am appointed.  Thou knowest that the glory of thy blessed Son is
+the sole object for which I live, and move, and have my being; but at
+times, alas! the spirit is infected with the weakness of the flesh.  Ora
+pro nobis, O Mother of mercy!  Verily, oftentimes my heart sinks within
+me when it is mine to vindicate the honour of thy holy cause against the
+young and the tender, the aged and the decrepit.  But what are beauty and
+youth, grey hairs and trembling knees, in the eye of the Creator?
+Miserable worms are we all; nor is there anything acceptable in the
+Divine sight but the hearts of the faithful.  Youth without faith, age
+without belief, purity without grace, virtue without holiness, are only
+more hideous by their seeming beauty--whited sepulchres, glittering
+rottenness.  I know this--I know it; but the human man is strong within
+me.  Strengthen me, that I pluck it out; so that, by diligent and
+constant struggle with the feeble Adam, thy servant may be reduced into
+a mere machine, to punish the godless and advance the Church."
+
+Here sobs and tears choked the speech of the Dominican; he grovelled in
+the dust, he tore his hair, he howled aloud: the agony was fierce upon
+him.  At length, he drew from his robe a whip, composed of several
+thongs, studded with small and sharp nails; and, stripping his gown, and
+the shirt of hair worn underneath, over his shoulders, applied the
+scourge to the naked flesh with a fury that soon covered the green sward
+with the thick and clotted blood.  The exhaustion which followed this
+terrible penance seemed to restore the senses of the stern fanatic.  A
+smile broke over the features, that bodily pain only released from the
+anguished expression of mental and visionary struggles; and, when he
+rose, and drew the hair-cloth shirt over the lacerated and quivering
+flesh, he said--"Now hast thou deigned to comfort and visit me, O pitying
+Mother; and, even as by these austerities against this miserable body, is
+the spirit relieved and soothed, so dost thou typify and betoken that
+men's bodies are not to be spared by those who seek to save souls and
+bring the nations of the earth into thy fold."
+
+With that thought the countenance of Torquemada reassumed its wonted
+rigid and passionless composure; and, replacing the scourge, yet clotted
+with blood, in his bosom, he pursued his way to the royal tent.
+
+He found Ferdinand poring over the accounts of the vast expenses of his
+military preparations, which he had just received from his treasurer; and
+the brow of the thrifty, though ostentatious monarch, was greatly
+overcast by the examination.
+
+"By the Bulls of Guisando!" said the king, gravely, "I purchase the
+salvation of my army in this holy war at a marvellous heavy price; and
+if the infidels hold out much longer, we shalt have to pawn our very
+patrimony of Arragon."
+
+"Son," answered the Dominican, "to purposes like thine fear not that
+Providence itself will supply the worldly means.  But why doubtest thou?
+are not the means within thy reach?  It is just that thou alone shouldst
+not support the wars by which Christendom is glorified.  Are there not
+others?"
+
+"I know what thou wouldst say, father," interrupted the king, quickly--
+"thou wouldst observe that my brother monarchs should assist me with arms
+and treasure.  Most just.  But they are avaricious and envious, Tomas;
+and Mammon hath corrupted them."
+
+"Nay, not to kings pointed my thought."
+
+"Well, then," resumed the king, impatiently, "thou wouldst imply that
+mine own knights and nobles should yield up their coffers, and mortgage
+their possessions.  And so they ought; but they murmur already at what
+they have yielded to our necessities."
+
+"And in truth," rejoined the friar, "these noble warriors should not be
+shorn of a splendour that well becomes the valiant champions of the
+Church.  Nay, listen to me, son, and I may suggest a means whereby, not
+the friends, but enemies, of the Catholic faith shall contribute to the
+down fall of the Paynim.  In thy dominions, especially those newly won,
+throughout Andalusia, in the kingdom of Cordova, are men of enormous
+wealth; the very caverns of the earth are sown with the impious treasure
+they have plundered from Christian hands, and consume in the furtherance
+of their iniquity.  Sire, I speak of the race that crucified the Lord."
+
+"The Jews--ay, but the excuse--"
+
+"Is before thee.  This traitor, with whom thou boldest intercourse, who
+vowed to thee to render up Granada, and who was found the very next
+morning, fighting with the Moors, with the blood of a Spanish martyr red
+upon his hands, did he not confess that his fathers were of that hateful
+race? did he not bargain with thee to elevate his brethren to the rank of
+Christians? and has be not left with thee, upon false pretences, a harlot
+of his faith, who, by sorcery and the help of the Evil One, hath seduced
+into frantic passion the heart of the heir of the most Christian king?"
+
+"Ha! thus does that libertine boy ever scandalise us!" said the king,
+bitterly.
+
+"Well," pursued the Dominican, not heeding the interruption, "have you
+not here excuse enough to wring from the whole race the purchase of their
+existence?  Note the glaring proof of this conspiracy of hell.  The
+outcasts of the earth employed this crafty agent to contract with thee
+for power; and, to consummate their guilty designs, the arts that seduced
+Solomon are employed against thy son.  The beauty of the strange woman
+captivates his senses; so that, through the future sovereign of Spain the
+counsels of Jewish craft may establish the domination of Jewish ambition.
+How knowest thou," he added as he observed that Ferdinand listened to him
+with earnest attention--"how knowest thou but what the next step might
+have been thy secret assassination, so that the victim of witchcraft, the
+minion of the Jewess, might reign in the stead of the mighty and
+unconquerable Ferdinand?"
+
+"Go on, father," said the king, thoughtfully; "I see, at least, enough to
+justify an impost upon these servitors of Mammon."
+
+"But, though common sense suggests to us," continued Torquemada, "that
+this disguised Israelite could not have acted on so vast a design without
+the instigation of his brethren, not only in Granada, but throughout all
+Andalusia,--would it not be right to obtain from him his confession, and
+that of the maiden, within the camp, so that we may have broad and
+undeniable evidence, whereon to act, and to still all cavil, that may
+come not only from the godless, but even from the too tender scruples of
+the righteous?  Even the queen--whom the saints ever guard!--hath ever
+too soft a heart for these infidels; and--"
+
+"Right!" cried the king, again breaking upon Torquemada; "Isabel, the
+queen of Castile, must be satisfied of the justice of all our actions."
+
+"And, should it be proved that thy throne or life were endangered, and
+that magic was exercised to entrap her royal son into a passion for a
+Jewish maiden, which the Church holds a crime worthy of excommunication
+itself, surely, instead of counteracting, she would assist our schemes."
+
+"Holy friend," said Ferdinand, with energy, "ever a comforter, both for
+this world and the next, to thee, and to the new powers intrusted to
+thee, we commit this charge; see to it at once; time presses--Granada is
+obstinate--the treasury waxes low."
+
+"Son, thou hast said enough," replied the Dominican, closing his eyes,
+and muttering a short thanksgiving.  "Now then to my task."
+
+"Yet stay," said the king, with an altered visage; "follow me to my
+oratory within: my heart is heavy, and I would fain seek the solace of
+the confessional."
+
+The monk obeyed: and while Ferdinand, whose wonderful abilities were
+mingled with the weakest superstition, who persecuted from policy, yet
+believed, in his own heart, that he punished but from piety,--confessed
+with penitent tears the grave offences of aves forgotten, and beads
+untold; and while the Dominican admonished, rebuked, or soothed,--neither
+prince nor monk ever dreamt that there was an error to confess in, or a
+penance to be adjudged to, the cruelty that tortured a fellow-being, or
+the avarice that sought pretences for the extortion of a whole people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE TRIBUNAL AND THE MIRACLE
+
+It was the dead of night--the army was hushed in sleep--when four
+soldiers belonging to the Holy Brotherhood, bearing with them one whose
+manacles proclaimed him a prisoner, passed in steady silence to a huge
+tent in the neighbourhood of the royal pavilion.  A deep dyke, formidable
+barricadoes, and sentries stationed at frequent intervals, testified the
+estimation in which the safety of this segment of the camp was held.  The
+tent to which the soldiers approached was, in extent, larger than even
+the king's pavilion itself--a mansion of canvas, surrounded by a wide
+wall of massive stones; and from its summit gloomed, in the clear and
+shining starlight, a small black pennant, on which was wrought a white
+broad-pointed cross.  The soldiers halted at the gate in the wall,
+resigned their charge, with a whispered watchword, to two gaunt sentries;
+and then (relieving the sentries who proceeded on with the prisoner)
+remained, mute and motionless, at the post: for stern silence and Spartan
+discipline were the attributes of the brotherhood of St. Hermandad.
+
+The prisoner, as he now neared the tent, halted a moment, looked round
+steadily, as if to fix the spot in his remembrance, and then, with an
+impatient though stately gesture, followed his guards.  He passed two
+divisions of the tent, dimly lighted, and apparently deserted.  A man,
+clad in long black robes, with a white cross on his breast, now appeared;
+there was an interchange of signals in dumb-show-and in another moment
+Almamen, the Hebrew, stood within a large chamber (if so that division of
+the tent might be called) hung with black serge.  At the upper part of
+the space was an estrado, or platform, on which, by a long table, sat
+three men; while at the head of the board was seen the calm and rigid
+countenance of Tomas de Torquemada.  The threshold of the tent was
+guarded by two men, in garments similar in hue and fashion to those of
+the figure who had ushered Almamen into the presence of the inquisitor,
+each bearing a long lance, and with a long two-edged sword by his side.
+This made all the inhabitants of that melancholy and ominous apartment.
+
+The Israelite looked round with a pale brow, but a flashing and scornful
+eye; and, when he met the gaze of the Dominican, it almost seemed as if
+those two men, each so raised above his fellows, by the sternness of his
+nature and the energy of his passions, sought by a look alone to assert
+his own supremacy and crush his foe.  Yet, in truth, neither did justice
+to the other; and the indignant disdain of Almamen was retorted by the
+cold and icy contempt of the Dominican.
+
+"Prisoner," said Torquemada (the first to withdraw his gaze), "a less
+haughty and stubborn demeanour might have better suited thy condition:
+but no matter; our Church is meek and humble.  We have sent for thee in a
+charitable and paternal hope; for although, as spy and traitor, thy life
+is already forfeited, yet would we fain redeem and spare it to
+repentance.  That hope mayst thou not forego, for the nature of all of us
+is weak and clings to life--that straw of the drowning seaman."
+
+"Priest, if such thou art," replied the Hebrew, "I have already, when
+first brought to this camp, explained the causes of my detention amongst
+the troops of the Moor.  It was my zeal for the king of Spain that
+brought me into that peril.  Escaping from that peril, incurred in his
+behalf, is the king of Spain to be my accuser and my judge?  If, however,
+my life now be sought as the grateful return for the proffer of
+inestimable service, I stand here to yield it.  Do thy worst; and tell
+thy master, that he loses more by my death than he can win by the lives
+of thirty thousand warriors."
+
+"Cease this idle babble," said the monk-inquisitor, contemptuously, "nor
+think thou couldst ever deceive, with thy empty words, the mighty
+intellect of Ferdinand of Spain.  Thou hast now to defend thyself against
+still graver charges than those of treachery to the king whom thou didst
+profess to serve.  Yea, misbeliever as thou art, it is thine to vindicate
+thyself from blasphemy against the God thou shouldst adore.  Confess the
+truth: thou art of the tribe and faith of Israel?"
+
+The Hebrew frowned darkly.  "Man," said he, solemnly, "is a judge of the
+deeds of men, but not of their opinions.  I will not answer thee."
+
+"Pause!  We have means at hand that the strongest nerves and the stoutest
+hearts have failed to encounter.  Pause--confess!"
+
+"Thy threat awes me not," said the Hebrew; "but I am human; and since
+thou wouldst know the truth, thou mayst learn it without the torture.
+I am of the same race as the apostles of thy Church--I am a Jew."
+
+"He confesses--write down the words.  Prisoner, thou hast done wisely;
+and we pray the Lord that, acting thus, thou mayst escape both the
+torture and the death.  And in that faith thy daughter was reared?
+Answer."
+
+"My daughter! there is no charge against her!  By the God of Sinai and
+Horeb, you dare not touch a hair of that innocent head!"
+
+"Answer," repeated the inquisitor, coldly.
+
+"I do answer.  She was brought up no renegade to her father's faith."
+
+"Write down the confession.  Prisoner," resumed the Dominican, after a
+pause, "but few more questions remain; answer them truly, and thy life is
+saved.  In thy conspiracy to raise thy brotherhood of Andalusia to power
+and influence--or, as thou didst craftily term it, to equal laws with the
+followers of our blessed Lord; in thy conspiracy (by what dark arts I
+seek not now to know _protege nos, beate Domine_!) to entangle in wanton
+affections to thy daughter the heart of the Infant of Spain-silence, I
+say--be still! in this conspiracy, thou wert aided, abetted, or
+instigated by certain Jews of Andalusia--"
+
+"Hold, priest!" cried Almamen, impetuously, "thou didst name my child.
+Do I hear aright?  Placed under the sacred charge of a king, and a belted
+knight, has she--oh!  answer me, I implore thee--been insulted by the
+licentious addresses of one of that king's own lineage?  Answer!  I am a
+Jew--but I am a father and a man."
+
+"This pretended passion deceives us not," said the Dominican, who,
+himself cut off from the ties of life, knew nothing of their power.
+"Reply to the question put to thee: name thy accomplices."
+
+"I have told thee all.  Thou hast refused to answer one.  I scorn and
+defy thee: my lips are closed."
+
+The Grand Inquisitor glanced to his brethren, and raised his hand.  His
+assistants whispered each other; one of them rose, and disappeared behind
+the canvas at the back of the tent.  Presently the hangings were
+withdrawn; and the prisoner beheld an, interior chamber, hung with
+various instruments the nature of which was betrayed by their very shape;
+while by the rack, placed in the centre of that dreary chamber, stood a
+tall and grisly figure, his arms bare, his eyes bent, as by an instinct,
+on the prisoner.
+
+Almamen gazed at these dread preparations with an unflinching aspect.
+The guards at the entrance of the tent approached: they struck off the
+fetters from his feet and hands; they led him towards the appointed place
+of torture.
+
+Suddenly the Israelite paused.
+
+"Priest," said he, in a more humble accent than he had yet assumed, "the
+tidings that thou didst communicate to me respecting the sole daughter of
+my house and love bewildered and confused me for the moment.  Suffer me
+but for a single moment to recollect my senses, and I will answer without
+compulsion all thou mayst ask.  Permit thy questions to be repeated."
+
+The Dominican, whose cruelty to others seemed to himself sanctioned by
+his own insensibility to fear, and contempt for bodily pain, smiled with
+bitter scorn at the apparent vacillation and weakness of the prisoner:
+but, as he delighted not in torture merely for torture's sake, he
+motioned to the guards to release the Israelite; and replied in a voice
+unnaturally mild and kindly, considering the circumstances of the scene,
+
+"Prisoner, could we save thee from pain, even by the anguish of our own
+flesh and sinews, Heaven is our judge that we would willingly undergo the
+torture which, with grief and sorrow, we ordained to thee.  Pause--take
+breath--collect thyself.  Three minutes shalt thou have to consider what
+course to adopt ere we repeat the question.  But then beware how thou
+triflest with our indulgence."
+
+"It suffices--I thank thee," said the Hebrew, with a touch of gratitude
+in his voice.  As he spoke he bent his face within his bosom, which he
+covered, as in profound meditation, with the folds of his long robe.
+Scarcely half the brief time allowed him had expired, when he again
+lifted his countenance and, as he did so, flung back his garment.  The
+Dominican uttered a loud cry; the guards started back in awe.  A
+wonderful change had come over the intended victim; he seemed to stand
+amongst them literally--wrapt in fire; flames burst from his lip, and
+played with his long locks, as, catching the glowing hue, they curled
+over his shoulders like serpents of burning light: blood-red were his
+breast and limbs, his haughty crest, and his outstretched arm; and as for
+a single moment, he met the shuddering eyes of his judges, he seemed,
+indeed, to verify all the superstitions of the time--no longer the
+trembling captive but the mighty demon or the terrible magician.
+
+The Dominican was the first to recover his self-possession.  "Seize the
+enchanter!" he exclaimed; but no man stirred.  Ere yet the exclamation
+had died on his lip, Almamen took from his breast a phial, and dashed it
+on the ground--it broke into a thousand shivers: a mist rose over the
+apartment--it spread, thickened, darkened, as a sudden night; the lamps
+could not pierce it.  The luminous form of the Hebrew grew dull and dim,
+until it vanished in the shade.  On every eye blindness seemed to fall.
+There was a dead silence, broken by a cry and a groan; and when, after
+some minutes, the darkness gradually dispersed, Almamen was gone.  One,
+of the guards lay bathed in blood upon the ground; they raised him: he
+had attempted to seize the prisoner, and had been stricken with a mortal
+wound.  He died as he faltered forth the explanation.  In the confusion
+and dismay of the scene none noticed, till long afterwards, that the
+prisoner had paused long enough to strip the dying guard of his long
+mantle; a proof that he feared his more secret arts might not suffice to
+bear him safe through the camp, without the aid of worldly stratagem.
+
+"The fiend hath been amongst us!" said the Dominican, solemnly falling on
+his knees,--"let us pray!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ISABEL AND THE JEWISH MAIDEN.
+
+While this scene took place before the tribunal of Torquemada, Leila had
+been summoned from the indulgence of fears, which her gentle nature and
+her luxurious nurturing had ill-fitted her to contend against, to the
+presence of the queen.  That gifted and high-spirited princess, whose
+virtues were her own, whose faults were of her age, was not, it is true,
+without the superstition and something of the intolerant spirit of her
+royal spouse: but, even where her faith assented to persecution, her
+heart ever inclined to mercy; and it was her voice alone that ever
+counteracted the fiery zeal of Torquemada, and mitigated the sufferings
+of the unhappy ones who fell under the suspicion of heresy.  She had,
+happily, too, within her a strong sense of justice, as well as the
+sentiment of compassion; and often, when she could not save the accused,
+she prevented the consequences of his imputed crime falling upon the
+innocent members of his house or tribe.
+
+In the interval between his conversation with Ferdinand and the
+examination of Almamen, the Dominican had sought the queen; and had
+placed before her, in glowing colours, not only the treason of Almamen,
+but the consequences of the impious passion her son had conceived for
+Leila.  In that day, any connection between a Christian knight and a
+Jewess was deemed a sin, scarce expiable; and Isabel conceived all that
+horror of her son's offence which was natural in a pious mother and a
+haughty queen.  But, despite all the arguments of the friar, she could
+not be prevailed upon to render up Leila to the tribunal of the
+Inquisition; and that dread court, but newly established, did not dare,
+without her consent, to seize upon one under the immediate protection
+of the queen.
+
+"Fear not, father," said Isabel, with quiet firmness, "I will take upon
+myself to examine the maiden; and, at least, I will see her removed from
+all chance of tempting or being tempted by this graceless boy.  But she
+was placed under the charge of the king and myself as a hostage and a
+trust; we accepted the charge, and our royal honor is pledged to the
+safety of the maiden.  Heaven forbid that I should deny the existence of
+sorcery, assured as we are of its emanation from the Evil One; but I
+fear, in this fancy of Juan's, that the maiden is more sinned against
+than sinning: and yet my son is, doubtless, not aware of the unhappy
+faith of the Jewess; the knowledge of which alone will suffice to cure
+him of his error.  You shake your head, father; but, I repeat, I will act
+in this affair so as to merit the confidence I demand.  Go, good Tomas.
+We have not reigned so long without belief in our power to control and
+deal with a simple maiden."
+
+The queen extended her hand to the monk, with a smile so sweet in its
+dignity, that it softened even that rugged heart; and, with a reluctant
+sigh, and a murmured prayer that her counsels might be guided for the
+best, Torquemada left the royal presence.
+
+"The poor child!" thought Isabel, "those tender limbs, and that fragile
+form, are ill fitted for yon monk's stern tutelage.  She seems gentle:
+and her face has in it all the yielding softness of our sex; doubtless by
+mild means, she may be persuaded to abjure her wretched creed; and the
+shade of some holy convent may hide her alike from the licentious gaze of
+my son and the iron zeal of the Inquisitor.  I will see her."
+
+When Leila entered the queen's pavilion, Isabel, who was alone, marked
+her trembling step with a compassionate eye; and, as Leila, in obedience
+to the queen's request, threw up her veil, the paleness of her cheek and
+the traces of recent tears appealed to Isabel's heart with more success
+than had attended all the pious invectives of Torquemada.
+
+"Maiden," said Isabel, encouragingly, "I fear thou hast been strangely
+harassed by the thoughtless caprice of the young prince.  Think of it no
+more.  But, if thou art what I have ventured to believe, and to assert
+thee to be, cheerfully subscribe to the means I will suggest for
+preventing the continuance of addresses which cannot but injure thy fair
+name."
+
+"Ah, madam!" said Leila, as she fell on one knee beside the queen, "most
+joyfully, most gratefully, will I accept any asylum which proffers
+solitude and peace."
+
+"The asylum to which I would fain lead thy steps," answered Isabel,
+gently, "is indeed one whose solitude is holy--whose peace is that of
+heaven.  But of this hereafter.  Thou wilt not hesitate, then, to quit
+the camp, unknown to the prince, and ere he can again seek thee?"
+
+"Hesitate, madam?  Ah rather, how shall I express my thanks?"
+
+"I did not read that face misjudgingly," thought the queen, as she
+resumed.  "Be it so; we will not lose another night.  Withdraw yonder,
+through the inner tent; the litter shall be straight prepared for thee;
+and ere midnight thou shalt sleep in safety under the roof of one of the
+bravest knights and noblest ladies that our realm can boast.  Thou shalt
+bear with thee a letter that shall commend thee specially to the care of
+thy hostess--thou wilt find her of a kindly and fostering nature.  And,
+oh, maiden!" added the queen, with benevolent warmth, "steel not thy
+heart against her--listen with ductile senses to her gentle ministry; and
+may God and His Son prosper that pious lady's counsel, so that it may win
+a new strayling to the Immortal Fold!"
+
+Leila listened and wondered, but made no answer; until, as she gained the
+entrance to the interior division of the tent, she stopped abruptly, and
+said, "Pardon me, gracious queen, but dare I ask thee one question?--it
+is not of myself."
+
+"Speak, and fear not."
+
+"My father--hath aught been heard of him?  He promised, that ere the
+fifth day were past, he would once more see his child; and, alas! that
+date is past, and I am still alone in the dwelling of the stranger."
+
+"Unhappy child!" muttered Isabel to herself; "thou knowest not his
+treason nor his fate--yet why shouldst thou?  Ignorant of what would
+render thee blest hereafter, continue ignorant of what would afflict thee
+here.  Be cheered, maiden," answered the queen, aloud.  "No doubt, there
+are reasons sufficient to forbid your meeting.  But thou shalt not lack
+friends in the dwelling-house of the stranger."
+
+"Ah, noble queen, pardon me, and one word more!  There hath been with me,
+more than once, a stern old man, whose voice freezes the blood within my
+veins; he questions me of my father, and in the tone of a foe who would
+entrap from the child something to the peril of the sire.  That man--thou
+knowest him, gracious queen--he cannot have the power to harm my father?"
+
+"Peace, maiden! the man thou speakest of is the priest of God, and the
+innocent have nothing to dread from his reverend zeal.  For thyself, I
+say again, be cheered; in the home to which I consign thee thou wilt see
+him no more.  Take comfort, poor child--weep not: all have their cares;
+our duty is to bear in this life, reserving hope only for the next."
+
+The queen, destined herself to those domestic afflictions which pomp
+cannot soothe, nor power allay, spoke with a prophetic sadness which yet
+more touched a heart that her kindness of look and tone had already
+softened; and, in the impulse of a nature never tutored in the rigid
+ceremonials of that stately court, Leila suddenly came forward, and
+falling on one knee, seized the hand of her protectress, and kissed it
+warmly through her tears.
+
+"Are you, too, unhappy?" she said.  "I will pray for you to _my_ God!"
+
+The queen, surprised and moved at an action which, had witnesses been
+present, would only perhaps (for such is human nature) have offended her
+Castilian prejudices, left her hand in Leila's grateful clasp; and laying
+the other upon the parted and luxuriant ringlets of the kneeling maiden,
+said, gently,--"And thy prayers shall avail thee and me when thy God and
+mine are the same.  Bless thee, maiden!  I am a mother; thou art
+motherless--bless thee!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE TEMPTATION OF THE JEWESS,--IN WHICH THE HISTORY PASSES FROM THE
+OUTWARD TO THE INTERNAL.
+
+It was about the very hour, almost the very moment, in which Almamen
+effected his mysterious escape from the tent of the Inquisition, that the
+train accompanying the litter which bore Leila, and which was composed of
+some chosen soldiers of Isabel's own body-guard, after traversing the
+camp, winding along that part of the mountainous defile which was in the
+possession of the Spaniards, and ascending a high and steep acclivity,
+halted before the gates of a strongly fortified castle renowned in the
+chronicles of that memorable war.  The hoarse challenge of the sentry,
+the grating of jealous bars, the clanks of hoofs upon the rough pavement
+of the courts, and the streaming glare of torches--falling upon stern and
+bearded visages, and imparting a ruddier glow to the moonlit buttresses
+and battlements of the fortress--aroused Leila from a kind of torpor
+rather than sleep, in which the fatigue and excitement of the day had
+steeped her senses.  An old seneschal conducted her, through vast and
+gloomy halls (how unlike the brilliant chambers and fantastic arcades of
+her Moorish home) to a huge Gothic apartment, hung with the arras of
+Flemish looms.  In a few moments, maidens, hastily aroused from slumber,
+grouped around her with a respect which would certainly not have been
+accorded had her birth and creed been known.  They gazed with surprise at
+her extraordinary beauty and foreign garb, and evidently considered the
+new guest a welcome addition to the scanty society of the castle.  Under
+any other circumstances, the strangeness of all she saw, and the frowning
+gloom of the chamber to which she was consigned, would have damped the
+spirits of one whose destiny had so suddenly passed from the deepest
+quiet into the sternest excitement.  But any change was a relief to the
+roar of the camp, the addresses of the prince, and the ominous voice and
+countenance of Torquemada; and Leila looked around her, with the feeling
+that the queen's promise was fulfilled, and that she was already amidst
+the blessings of shelter and repose.  It was long, however, before sleep
+revisited her eyelids, and when she woke the noonday sun streamed broadly
+through the lattice.  By the bedside sat a matron advanced in years, but
+of a mild and prepossessing countenance, which only borrowed a yet more
+attractive charm from an expression of placid and habitual melancholy.
+She was robed in black; but the rich pearls that were interwoven in the
+sleeves and stomacher, the jewelled cross that was appended from a chain
+of massive gold, and, still more, a certain air of dignity and command,--
+bespoke, even to the inexperienced eye of Leila, the evidence of superior
+station.
+
+"Thou hast slept late, daughter," said the lady, with a benevolent smile;
+"may thy slumbers have refreshed thee!  Accept my regrets that I knew not
+till this morning of thine arrival, or I should have been the first to
+welcome the charge of my royal mistress."
+
+There was in the look, much more than in the words of the Donna Inez de
+Quexada, a soothing and tender interest that was as balm to the heart of
+Leila; in truth, she had been made the guest of, perhaps, the only lady
+in Spain, of pure and Christian blood, who did not despise or execrate
+the name of Leila's tribe.  Donna Inez had herself contracted to a Jew a
+debt of gratitude which she had sought to return to the whole race.  Many
+years before the time in which our tale is cast, her husband and herself
+had been sojourning at Naples, then closely connected with the politics
+of Spain, upon an important state mission.  They had then an only son, a
+youth of a wild and desultory character, whom the spirit of adventure
+allured to the East.  In one of those sultry lands the young Quexada was
+saved from the hands of robbers by the caravanserai of a wealthy
+traveller.  With this stranger he contracted that intimacy which
+wandering and romantic men often conceive for each other, without any
+other sympathy than that of the same pursuits.  Subsequently, he
+discovered that his companion was of the Jewish faith; and, with the
+usual prejudice of his birth and time, recoiled from the friendship he
+had solicited, and shrank from the sense of the obligation he had
+incurred he--quitted his companion.  Wearied, at length, with travel, he
+was journeying homeward, when he was seized with a sudden and virulent
+fever, mistaken for plague: all fled from the contagion of the supposed
+pestilence--he was left to die.  One man discovered his condition--
+watched, tended, and, skilled in the deeper secrets of the healing art,
+restored him to life and health: it was the same Jew who had preserved
+him from the robbers.  At this second and more inestimable obligation the
+prejudices of the Spaniard vanished: he formed a deep and grateful
+attachment for his preserver; they lived together for some time, and the
+Israelite finally accompanied the young Quexada to Naples.  Inez retained
+a lively sense of the service rendered to her only son, and the
+impression had been increased not only by the appearance of the
+Israelite, which, dignified and stately, bore no likeness to the cringing
+servility of his brethren, but also by the singular beauty and gentle
+deportment of his then newly-wed bride, whom he had wooed and won in that
+holy land, sacred equally to the faith of Christian and of Jew.  The
+young Quexada did not long survive his return: his constitution was
+broken by long travel, and the debility that followed his fierce disease.
+On his deathbed he had besought the mother whom he left childless, and
+whose Catholic prejudices were less stubborn than those of his sire,
+never to forget the services a Jew had conferred upon him; to make the
+sole recompense in her power--the sole recompense the Jew himself had
+demanded--and to lose no occasion to soothe or mitigate the miseries to
+which the bigotry of the time often exposed the oppressed race of his
+deliverer.  Donna Inez had faithfully kept the promise she gave to the
+last scion of her house; and, through the power and reputation of her
+husband and her own connections, and still more through an early
+friendship with the queen, she had, on her return to Spain, been enabled
+to ward off many a persecution, and many a charge on false pretences, to
+which the wealth of some son of Israel made the cause, while his faith
+made the pretext.  Yet, with all the natural feelings of a rigid
+Catholic, she had earnestly sought to render the favor she had thus
+obtained amongst the Jews minister to her pious zeal for their more than
+temporal welfare.  She had endeavored, by gentle means, to make the
+conversions which force was impotent to effect; and, in some instances,
+her success had been signal.  The good senora had thus obtained high
+renown for sanctity; and Isabel thought rightly that she could not select
+a protectress for Leila who would more kindly shelter her youth, or more
+strenuously labor for her salvation.  It was, indeed, a dangerous
+situation for the adherence of the maiden to that faith which it had cost
+her fiery father so many sacrifices to preserve and to advance.
+
+It was by little and little that Donna Inez sought rather to undermine
+than to storm the mental fortress she hoped to man with spiritual allies;
+and, in her frequent conversation with Leila, she was at once perplexed
+and astonished by the simple and sublime nature of the belief upon which
+she waged war.  For whether it was that, in his desire to preserve Leila
+as much as possible from contact even with Jews themselves, whose general
+character (vitiated by the oppression which engendered meanness, and the
+extortion which fostered avarice) Almamen regarded with lofty though
+concealed repugnance; or whether it was, that his philosophy did not
+interpret the Jewish formula of belief in the same spirit as the herd,--
+the religion inculcated in the breast of Leila was different from that
+which Inez had ever before encountered amongst her proselytes.  It was
+less mundane and material--a kind of passionate rather than metaphysical
+theism, which invested the great ONE, indeed, with many human sympathies
+and attributes, but still left Him the August and awful God of the
+Genesis, the Father of a Universe though the individual Protector of a
+fallen sect.  Her attention had been less directed to whatever appears,
+to a superficial gaze, stern and inexorable in the character of the
+Hebrew God, and which the religion of Christ so beautifully softened and
+so majestically refined, than to those passages in which His love watched
+over a chosen people, and His forbearance bore with their transgressions.
+Her reason had been worked upon to its belief by that mysterious and
+solemn agency, by which--when the whole world beside was bowed to the
+worship of innumerable deities, and the adoration of graven images,--in a
+small and secluded portion of earth, amongst a people far less civilised
+and philosophical than many by which they were surrounded, had been alone
+preserved a pure and sublime theism, disdaining a likeness in the things
+of heaven or earth.  Leila knew little of the more narrow and exclusive
+tenets of her brethren; a Jewess in name, she was rather a deist in
+belief; a deist of such a creed as Athenian schools might have taught to
+the imaginative pupils of Plato, save only that too dark a shadow had
+been cast over the hopes of another world.  Without the absolute denial
+of the Sadducee, Almamen had, probably, much of the quiet scepticism
+which belonged to many sects of the early Jews, and which still clings
+round the wisdom of the wisest who reject the doctrine of Revelation; and
+while he had not sought to eradicate from the breast of his daughter any
+of the vague desire which points to a Hereafter, he had never, at least,
+directed her thoughts or aspirations to that solemn future.  Nor in the
+sacred book which was given to her survey, and which so rigidly upheld
+the unity of the Supreme Power, was there that positive and unequivocal
+assurance of life beyond "the grave where all things are forgotten," that
+might supply the deficiencies of her mortal instructor.  Perhaps, sharing
+those notions of the different value of the sexes, prevalent, from the
+remotest period, in his beloved and ancestral East, Almamen might have
+hopes for himself which did not extend to his child.  And thus she grew
+up, with all the beautiful faculties of the soul cherished and unfolded,
+without thought, without more than dim and shadowy conjectures, of the
+Eternal Bourne to which the sorrowing pilgrim of the earth is bound.  It
+was on this point that the quick eye of Donna Inez discovered her faith
+was vulnerable: who would not, if belief were voluntary, believe in the
+world to come?  Leila's curiosity and interest were aroused: she
+willingly listened to her new guide--she willingly inclined to
+conclusions pressed upon her, not with menace, but persuasion.  Free from
+the stubborn associations, the sectarian prejudices, and unversed in the
+peculiar traditions and accounts of the learned of her race, she found
+nothing to shock her in the volume which seemed but a continuation of the
+elder writings of her faith.  The sufferings of the Messiah, His sublime
+purity, His meek forgiveness, spoke to her woman's heart; His doctrines
+elevated, while they charmed, her reason: and in the Heaven that a Divine
+hand opened to all,--the humble as the proud, the oppressed as the
+oppressor, to the woman as to the lords of the earth,--she found a haven
+for all the doubts she had known, and for the despair which of late had
+darkened the face of earth.  Her home lost, the deep and beautiful love
+of her youth blighted,--that was a creed almost irresistible which told
+her that grief was but for a day, that happiness was eternal.  Far, too,
+from revolting such of the Hebrew pride of association as she had formed,
+the birth of the Messiah in the land of the Israelites seemed to
+consummate their peculiar triumph as the Elected of Jehovah.  And while
+she mourned for the Jews who persecuted the Saviour, she gloried in those
+whose belief had carried the name and worship of the descendants of David
+over the furthest regions of the world.  Often she perplexed and startled
+the worthy Inez by exclaiming, "This, your belief, is the same as mine,
+adding only the assurance of immortal life--Christianity is but the
+Revelation of Judaism."
+
+The wise and gentle instrument of Leila's conversion did not, however,
+give vent to those more Catholic sentiments which might have scared away
+the wings of the descending dove.  She forbore too vehemently to point
+out the distinctions of the several creeds, and rather suffered them to
+melt insensibly one into the other: Leila was a Christian, while she
+still believed herself a Jewess.  But in the fond and lovely weakness of
+mortal emotions, there was one bitter thought that often and often came
+to mar the peace that otherwise would have settled on her soul.  That
+father, the sole softener of whose stern heart and mysterious fates she
+was, with what pangs would he receive the news of her conversion!  And
+Muza, that bright and hero-vision of her youth--was she not setting the
+last seal of separation upon all hope of union with the idol of the
+Moors?  But, alas! was she not already separated from him, and had not
+their faiths been from the first at variance?  From these thoughts she
+started with sighs and tears; and before her stood the crucifix already
+admitted into her chamber, and--not, perhaps, too wisely--banished so
+rigidly from the oratories of the Huguenot.  For the representation of
+that Divine resignation, that mortal agony, that miraculous sacrifice,
+what eloquence it hath for our sorrows! what preaching hath the symbol
+to the vanities of our wishes, to the yearnings of our discontent!
+
+By degrees, as her new faith grew confirmed, Leila now inclined herself
+earnestly to those pictures of the sanctity and calm of the conventual
+life which Inez delighted to draw.  In the reaction of her thoughts, and
+her despondency of all worldly happiness, there seemed, to the young
+maiden, an inexpressible charm in a solitude which was to release her for
+ever from human love, and render her entirely up to sacred visions and
+imperishable hopes.  And with this selfish, there mingled a generous and
+sublime sentiment.  The prayers of a convert might be heard in favour of
+those yet benighted: and the awful curse upon her outcast race be
+lightened by the orisons of one humble heart.  In all ages, in all
+creeds, a strange and mystic impression has existed of the efficacy of
+self-sacrifice in working the redemption even of a whole people: this
+belief, so strong in the old orient and classic religions, was yet more
+confirmed by Christianity--a creed founded upon the grandest of historic
+sacrifices; and the lofty doctrine of which, rightly understood,
+perpetuates in the heart of every believer the duty of self-immolation,
+as well as faith in the power of prayer, no matter how great the object,
+how mean the supplicator.  On these thoughts Leila meditated, till
+thoughts acquired the intensity of passions, and the conversion of the
+Jewess was completed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE HOUR AND THE MAN
+
+It was on the third morning after the King of Granada, reconciled to his
+people, had reviewed his gallant army in the Vivarrambla; and Boabdil,
+surrounded by his chiefs and nobles, was planning a deliberate and
+decisive battle, by assault on the Christian camp,--when a scout suddenly
+arrived, breathless, at the gates of the palace, to communicate the
+unlooked-for and welcome intelligence that Ferdinand had in the night
+broken up his camp, and marched across the mountains towards Cordova.  In
+fact, the outbreak of formidable conspiracies had suddenly rendered the
+appearance of Ferdinand necessary elsewhere; and, his intrigues with
+Almamen frustrated, he despaired of a very speedy conquest of the city.
+The Spanish king resolved, therefore, after completing the devastation of
+the Vega, to defer the formal and prolonged siege, which could alone
+place Granada within his power, until his attention was no longer
+distracted to other foes, and until, it must be added, he had replenished
+an exhausted treasury.  He had formed, with Torquemada, a vast and wide
+scheme of persecution, not only against Jews, but against Christians
+whose fathers had been of that race, and who were suspected of relapsing
+into Judaical practices.  The two schemers of this grand design were
+actuated by different motives; the one wished to exterminate the crime,
+the other to sell forgiveness for it.  And Torquemada connived at the
+griping avarice of the king, because it served to give to himself, and to
+the infant Inquisition, a power and authority which the Dominican foresaw
+would be soon greater even than those of royalty itself, and which, he
+imagined, by scourging earth, would redound to the interests of Heaven.
+
+The strange disappearance of Almamen, which was distorted and
+exaggerated, by the credulity of the Spaniards, into an event of the most
+terrific character, served to complete the chain of evidence against the
+wealthy Jews, and Jew-descended Spaniards, of Andalusia; and while, in
+imagination, the king already clutched the gold of their redemption here,
+the Dominican kindled the flame that was to light them to punishment
+hereafter.
+
+Boabdil and his chiefs received the intelligence of the Spanish retreat
+with a doubt which soon yielded to the most triumphant delight.  Boabdil
+at once resumed all the energy for which, though but by fits and starts,
+his earlier youth had been remarkable.
+
+"Alla Achbar!  God is great!" cried he; "we will not remain here till it
+suit the foe to confine the eagle again to his eyrie.  They have left us
+--we will burst on them.  Summon our alfaquis, we will proclaim a holy
+war!  The sovereign of the last possessions of the Moors is in the field.
+Not a town that contains a Moslem but shall receive our summons, and we
+will gather round our standard all the children of our faith!"
+
+"May the king live for ever!" cried the council, with one voice.
+
+"Lose not a moment," resumed Boabdil--"on to the Vivarrambla, marshal the
+troops--Muza heads the cavalry; myself our foot.  Ere the sun's shadow
+reach yonder forest, our army shall be on its march."
+
+The warriors, hastily and in joy, left the palace; and when he was alone,
+Boabdil again relapsed into his wonted irresolution.  After striding to
+and fro for some minutes in anxious thought, he abruptly quitted the hall
+of council, and passed in to the more private chambers of the palace,
+till he came to a door strongly guarded by plates of iron.  It yielded
+easily, however, to a small key which he carried in his girdle; and
+Boabdil stood in a small circular room, apparently without other door or
+outlet; but, after looking cautiously round, the king touched a secret
+spring in the wall, which, giving way, discovered a niche, in which stood
+a small lamp, burning with the purest naphtha, and a scroll of yellow
+parchment covered with strange letters and hieroglyphics.  He thrust the
+scroll in his bosom, took the lamp in his hand, and pressing another
+spring within the niche, the wall receded, and showed a narrow and
+winding staircase.  The king reclosed the entrance, and descended: the
+stairs led, at last, into clamp and rough passages; and the murmur of
+waters, that reached his ear through the thick walls, indicated the
+subterranean nature of the soil through which they were hewn.  The lamp
+burned clear and steady through the darkness of the place; and Boabdil
+proceeded with such impatient rapidity, that the distance (in reality,
+considerable) which he traversed, before he arrived at his destined
+bourne, was quickly measured.  He came at last into a wide cavern,
+guarded by doors concealed and secret as those which had screened the
+entrance from the upper air.  He was in one of the many vaults which made
+the mighty cemetery of the monarchs of Granada; and before him stood the
+robed and crowned skeleton, and before him glowed the magic dial-plate of
+which he had spoken in his interview with Muza.
+
+"Oh, dread and awful image!" cried the king, throwing himself on his
+knees before the skeleton,--"shadow of what was once a king, wise in
+council, and terrible in war, if in those hollow bones yet lurks the
+impalpable and unseen spirit, hear thy repentant son.  Forgive, while it
+is yet time, the rebellion of his fiery youth, and suffer thy daring soul
+to animate the doubt and weakness of his own.  I go forth to battle,
+waiting not the signal thou didst ordain.  Let not the penance for a
+rashness, to which fate urges me on, attach to my country, but to me.
+And if I perish in the field, may my evil destinies be buried with me,
+and a worthier monarch redeem my errors and preserve Granada!"
+
+As the king raised his looks, the unrelaxed grin of the grim dead, made
+yet more hideous by the mockery of the diadem and the royal robe, froze
+back to ice the passion and sorrow at his heart.  He shuddered, and rose
+with a deep sigh; when, as his eyes mechanically followed the lifted arm
+of the skeleton, he beheld, with mingled delight and awe, the hitherto
+motionless finger of the dial-plate pass slowly on, and rest at the word
+so long and so impatiently desired.  "ARM!" cried the king; "do I read
+aright?--are my prayers heard?"  A low and deep sound, like that of
+subterranean thunder, boomed through the chamber; and in the same instant
+the wall opened, and the king beheld the long-expected figure of Almamen,
+the magician.  But no longer was that stately form clad in the loose and
+peaceful garb of the Eastern santon.  Complete armour cased his broad
+chest and sinewy limbs; his head alone was bare, and his prominent and
+impressive features were lighted, not with mystical enthusiasm, but with
+warlike energy.  In his right hand, he carried a drawn sword--his left
+supported the staff of a snow-white and dazzling banner.
+
+So sudden was the apparition, and so excited the mind of the king, that
+the sight of a supernatural being could scarcely have impressed him with
+more amaze and awe.
+
+"King of Granada," said Almamen, "the hour hath come at last; go forth
+and conquer!  With the Christian monarch, there is no hope of peace or
+compact.  At thy request I sought him, but my spells alone preserved the
+life of thy herald.  Rejoice! for thine evil destinies have rolled away
+from thy spirit, like a cloud from the glory of the sun.  The genii of
+the East have woven this banner from the rays of benignant stars.  It
+shall beam before thee in the front of battle--it shall rise over the
+rivers of Christian blood.  As the moon sways the bosom of the tides,
+it shall sway and direct the surges and the course of war!"
+
+"Man of mystery! thou hast given me a new life."
+
+"And, fighting by thy side," resumed Almamen, "I will assist to carve out
+for thee, from the ruins of Arragon and Castile, the grandeur of a new
+throne.  Arm, monarch of Granada!--arm!  I hear the neigh of thy charger,
+in the midst of the mailed thousands!  Arm!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+CHAPTER.  I.
+
+LEILA IN THE CASTLE--THE SIEGE.
+
+The calmer contemplations and more holy anxieties of Leila were, at
+length, broken in upon by intelligence, the fearful interest of which
+absorbed the whole mind and care of every inhabitant of the castle.
+Boabdil el Chico had taken the field, at the head of a numerous army.
+Rapidly scouring the country, he had descended, one after one, upon the
+principal fortresses, which Ferdinand had left, strongly garrisoned, in
+the immediate neighbourhood.  His success was as immediate as it was
+signal; the terror of his arms began, once more to spread far and wide;
+every day swelled his ranks with new recruits; and from the snow-clad
+summits of the Sierra Nevada poured down, in wild hordes, the fierce
+mountain race, who, accustomed to eternal winter, made a strange
+contrast, in their rugged appearance and shaggy clothing, to the
+glittering and civilised soldiery of Granada.
+
+Moorish towns, which had submitted to Ferdinand, broke from their
+allegiance, and sent their ardent youth and experienced veterans to the
+standard of the Keys and Crescent.  To add to the sudden panic of the
+Spaniards, it went forth that a formidable magician, who seemed inspired
+rather with the fury of a demon than the valour of a man, had made an
+abrupt appearance in the ranks of the Moslems.  Wherever the Moors shrank
+back from wall or tower, down which poured the boiling pitch, or rolled
+the deadly artillery of the besieged, this sorcerer--rushing into the
+midst of the flagging force, and waving, with wild gestures, a white
+banner, supposed by both Moor and Christian to be the work of magic and
+preternatural spells--dared every danger, and escaped every weapon: with
+voice, with prayer, with example, he fired the Moors to an enthusiasm
+that revived the first days of Mohammedan conquest; and tower after
+tower, along the mighty range of the mountain chain of fortresses, was
+polluted by the wave and glitter of the ever-victorious banner.  The
+veteran, Mendo de Quexada, who, with a garrison of two hundred and fifty
+men, held the castle of Almamen, was, however, undaunted by the
+unprecedented successes of Boabdil.  Aware of the approaching storm, he
+spent the days of peace yet accorded to him in making every preparation
+for the siege that he foresaw; messengers were despatched to Ferdinand;
+new out-works were added to the castle; ample store of provisions laid
+in; and no precaution omitted that could still preserve to the Spaniards
+a fortress that, from its vicinity to Granada, its command of the Vega
+and the valleys of the Alpuxarras, was the bitterest thorn in the side of
+the Moorish power.
+
+It was early, one morning, that Leila stood by the lattice of her lofty
+chamber gazing, with many and mingled emotions, on the distant domes of
+Granada, as they slept in the silent sunshine.  Her heart, for the
+moment, was busy with the thoughts of home, and the chances and peril of
+the time were forgotten.
+
+The sound of martial music, afar off, broke upon her reveries; she
+started, and listened breathlessly; it became more distinct and clear.
+The clash of the zell, the boom of the African drum, and the wild and
+barbarous blast of the Moorish clarion, were now each distinguishable
+from the other; and, at length, as she gazed and listened, winding along
+the steeps of the mountain were seen the gleaming spears and pennants of
+the Moslem vanguard.  Another moment and the whole castle was astir.
+
+Mendo de Quexada, hastily arming, repaired, himself, to the battlements;
+and, from her lattice, Leila beheld him, from time to time, stationing to
+the best advantage his scanty troops.  In a few minutes she was joined by
+Donna Inez and the women of the castle, who fearfully clustered round
+their mistress,--not the less disposed, however, to gratify the passion
+of the sex, by a glimpse through the lattice at the gorgeous array of the
+Moorish army.
+
+The casements of Leila's chamber were peculiarly adapted to command a
+safe nor insufficient view of the progress of the enemy; and, with a
+beating heart and flushing cheek, the Jewish maiden, deaf to the voices
+around her, imagined she could already descry amidst the horsemen the
+lion port and snowy garments of Muza Ben Abil Gazan.
+
+What a situation was hers!  Already a Christian, could she hope for the
+success of the infidel? ever a woman, could she hope for the defeat of
+her lover?  But the time for meditation on her destiny was but brief; the
+detachment of the Moorish cavalry was now just without the walls of the
+little town that girded the castle, and the loud clarion of the heralds
+summoned the garrison to surrender.
+
+"Not while one stone stands upon another!" was the short answer of
+Quexada; and, in ten minutes afterwards, the sullen roar of the artillery
+broke from wall and tower over the vales below.
+
+It was then that the women, from Leila's lattice, beheld, slowly
+marshalling themselves in order, the whole power and pageantry of the
+besieging army.  Thick-serried--line after line, column upon column--they
+spread below the frowning steep.  The sunbeams lighted up that goodly
+array, as it swayed, and murmured, and advanced, like the billows of a
+glittering sea.  The royal standard was soon descried waving above the
+pavilion of Boabdil; and the king himself, mounted on his cream-coloured
+charger, which was covered with trappings of cloth-of-gold, was
+recognised amongst the infantry, whose task it was to lead the assault.
+
+"Pray with us, my daughter!" cried Inez, falling on her knees.-Alas!
+what could Leila pray for?
+
+Four days and four nights passed away in that memorable siege; for the
+moon, then at her full, allowed no respite, even in night itself.  Their
+numbers, and their vicinity to Granada, gave the besiegers the advantage
+of constant relays, and troop succeeded to troop; so that the weary had
+ever successors in the vigour of new assailants.
+
+On the fifth day, all of the fortress, save the keep (an immense tower),
+was in the hands of the Moslems; and in this last hold, the worn-out and
+scanty remnant of the garrison mustered, in the last hope of a brave,
+despair.
+
+Quexada appeared, covered with gore and dust-his eyes bloodshot, his
+cheek haggard and hollow, his locks blanched with sudden age-in the hall
+of the tower, where the women, half dead with terror, were assembled.
+
+"Food!" cried he,--"food and wine!--it may be our last banquet."
+
+His wife threw her arms round him.  "Not yet," he cried, "not yet; we
+will have one embrace before we part."
+
+"Is there, then, no hope?" said Inez, with a pale cheek, yet steady eye.
+
+"None; unless to-morrow's dawn gild the spears of Ferdinand's army upon
+yonder hills.  Till morn we may hold out."  As he spoke, he hastily
+devoured some morsels of food, drained a huge goblet of wine, and
+abruptly quitted the chamber.
+
+At that moment, the women distinctly heard the loud shouts of the Moors;
+and Leila, approaching the grated casement, could perceive the approach
+of what seemed to her like moving wails.
+
+Covered by ingenious constructions of wood and thick hides, the besiegers
+advanced to the foot of the tower in comparative shelter from the burning
+streams which still poured, fast and seething, from the battlements;
+while, in the rear came showers of darts and cross-bolts from the more
+distant Moors, protecting the work of the engineer, and piercing through
+almost every loophole and crevice in the fortress.
+
+Meanwhile the stalwart governor beheld, with dismay and despair, the
+preparations of the engineers, whom the wooden screen-works protected
+from every weapon.
+
+"By the Holy Sepulchre!" cried he, gnashing his teeth, "they are mining
+the tower, and we shall be buried in its ruins!  Look out, Gonsalvo!  see
+you not a gleam of spears yonder over the mountain?  Mine eyes are dim
+with watching."
+
+"Alas! brave Mendo, it is only the sloping sun upon the snows--but there
+is hope yet."
+
+The soldier's words terminated in a shrill and sudden cry of agony; and
+he fell dead by the side of Quexada, the brain crushed by a bolt from a
+Moorish arquebus.
+
+"My best warrior!" said Quexada; "peace be with him!  Ho, there! see you
+yon desperate infidel urging on the miners?  By the heavens above, it is
+he of the white banner!--it is the sorcerer!  Fire on him! he is without
+the shelter of the woodworks."
+
+Twenty shafts, from wearied and nerveless arms, fell innocuous round the
+form of Almamen: and as, waving aloft his ominous banner, he disappeared
+again behind the screen-works, the Spaniards almost fancied they could
+hear his exulting and demon laugh.
+
+The sixth day came, and the work of the enemy was completed.  The tower
+was entirely undermined--the foundations rested only upon wooden props,
+which, with a humanity that was characteristic of Boabdil, had been
+placed there in order that the besieged might escape ere the final crash
+of their last hold.
+
+It was now noon: the whole Moorish force, quitting the plain, occupied
+the steep that spread below the tower, in multitudinous array and
+breathless expectation.  The miners stood aloof--the Spaniards lay
+prostrate and exhausted upon the battlements, like mariners who, after
+every effort against the storm, await, resigned, and almost indifferent,
+the sweep of the fatal surge.
+
+Suddenly the lines of the Moors gave way, and Boabdil himself, with Muza
+at his right hand, and Almamen on his left, advanced towards the foot of
+the tower.  At the same time, the Ethiopian guards, each bearing a torch,
+marched slowly in the rear; and from the midst of them paced the royal
+herald and sounded the last warning.  The hush of the immense armament--
+the glare of the torches, lighting the ebon faces and giant forms of
+their bearers--the majestic appearance of the king himself--the heroic
+aspect of Muza--the bare head and glittering banner of Almamen--all
+combined with the circumstances of the time to invest the spectacle with
+something singularly awful, and, perhaps, sublime.
+
+Quexada turned his eyes, mutely, round the ghastly faces of his warriors,
+and still made not the signal.  His lips muttered--his eyes glared: when,
+suddenly, he heard below the wail of women; and the thought of Inez, the
+bride of his youth, the partner of his age, came upon him; and, with a
+trembling hand, he lowered the yet unquailing standard of Spain.  Then,
+the silence below broke into a mighty shout, which shook the grim tower
+to its unsteady and temporary base.
+
+"Arise, my friends," he said, with a bitter sigh; "we have fought like
+men--and our country will not blush for us."  He descended the winding
+stairs--his soldiers followed him with faltering steps: the gates of the
+keep unfolded, and these gallant Christians surrendered themselves to the
+Moor.
+
+"Do with it as you will," said Quexada, as he laid the keys at the hoofs
+of Boabdil's barb; "but there are women in the garrison, who--"
+
+"Are sacred," interrupted the king.  "At once we accord their liberty,
+and free transport whithersoever ye would desire.  Speak, then!  To what
+place of safety shall they be conducted?"
+
+"Generous king!" replied the veteran Quexada, brushing away his tears
+with the back of his hand; "you take the sting from our shame.  We accept
+your offer in the same spirit in which it is made.  Across the mountains,
+on the verge of the plain of Olfadez, I possess a small castle,
+ungarrisoned and unfortified.  Thence, should the war take that
+direction, the women can readily obtain safe conduct to the queen at
+Cordova."
+
+"Be it so," returned Boabdil.  Then, with Oriental delicacy, selecting
+the eldest of the officers round him, he gave him instructions to enter
+the castle, and, with a strong guard, provide for the safety of the
+women, according to the directions of Quexada.  To another of his
+officers he confided the Spanish prisoners, and gave the signal to his
+army to withdraw from the spot, leaving only a small body to complete the
+ruin of the fortress.
+
+Accompanied by Almamen and his principal officers, Boabdil now hastened
+towards Granada; and while, with slower progress, Quexada and his
+companions, under a strong escort, took their way across the Vega, a
+sudden turn in their course brought abruptly before them the tower they
+had so valiantly defended.  There it still stood, proud and stern, amidst
+the blackened and broken wrecks around it, shooting aloft, dark and grim,
+against the sky.  Another moment, and a mighty crash sounded on their
+ears, while the tower fell to the earth, amidst volumes of wreathing
+smoke and showers of dust, which were borne, by the concussion to the
+spot on which they took their last gaze of the proudest fortress on which
+the Moors of Granada had beheld, from their own walls, the standard of
+Arragon and Castile.
+
+At the same time, Leila--thus brought so strangely within the very reach
+of her father and her lover, and yet, by a mysterious fate, still divided
+from both,--with Donna Inez, and the rest of the females of the garrison,
+pursued her melancholy path along the ridges of the mountains.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ALMAMEN'S PROPOSED ENTERPRISE.--THE THREE ISRAELITES--CIRCUMSTANCE
+IMPRESSES EACH CHARACTER WITH A VARYING DIE.
+
+Boadbil followed up his late success with a series of brilliant assaults
+on-the neighbouring fortresses.  Granada, like a strong man bowed to the
+ground, wrenched one after one the bands that had crippled her liberty
+and strength; and, at length, after regaining a considerable portion of
+the surrounding territory, the king resolved to lay siege to the seaport
+of Salobrena.  Could he obtain this town, Boabdil, by establishing
+communication between the sea and Granada, would both be enabled to avail
+himself of the assistance of his African allies, and also prevent the
+Spaniards from cutting off supplies to the city, should they again
+besiege it.  Thither, then, accompanied by Muza, the Moorish king bore
+his victorious standard.
+
+On the eve of his departure, Almamen sought the king's presence.  A great
+change had come over the canton since the departure of Ferdinand; his
+wonted stateliness of mien was gone; his eyes were sunk and hollow; his
+manner disturbed and absent.  In fact, his love for his daughter made the
+sole softness of his character; and that daughter was in the hands of the
+king who had sentenced the father to the tortures of the Inquisition!
+To what dangers might she not be subjected, by the intolerant zeal of
+conversion! and could that frame, and gentle heart, brave the terrific
+engines that might be brought against her fears?  "Better," thought he,
+"that she should perish, even by the torture, than adopt that hated
+faith."  He gnashed his teeth in agony at either alternative.  His
+dreams, his objects, his revenge, his ambition--all forsook him: one
+single hope, one thought, completely mastered his stormy passions and
+fitful intellect.
+
+In this mood the pretended santon met Boabdil.  He represented to the
+king, over whom his influence had prodigiously increased since the late
+victories of the Moors, the necessity of employing the armies of
+Ferdinand at a distance.  He proposed, in furtherance of this policy, to
+venture himself in Cordova; to endeavour secretly to stir up those Moors,
+in that, their ancient kingdom, who had succumbed to the Spanish yoke,
+and whose hopes might naturally be inflamed by the recent successes of
+Boabdil; and, at least, to foment such disturbances as might afford the
+king sufficient time to complete his designs, and recruit his force by
+aid of the powers with which he was in league.
+
+The representations of Almamen at length conquered Boabdil's reluctance
+to part with his sacred guide; and it was finally arranged that the
+Israelite should at once depart from the city.
+
+As Almamen pursued homeward his solitary way, he found himself suddenly
+accosted in the Hebrew tongue.  He turned hastily, and saw before him an
+old man in the Jewish gown: he recognised Elias, one of the wealthiest
+and most eminent of the race of Israel.
+
+"Pardon me, wise countryman!" said the Jew, bowing to the earth, "but I
+cannot resist the temptation of claiming kindred with one through whom
+the horn of Israel may be so triumphantly exalted."
+
+"Hush, man!" said Almamen, quickly, and looking sharply round; "I thy
+countryman!  Art thou not, as thy speech betokens, an Israelite?"
+
+"Yea," returned the Jew, "and of the same tribe as thy honoured father--
+peace be with his ashes!  I remembered thee at once, boy though thou wert
+when thy steps shook off the dust against Granada.  I remembered thee, I
+say, at once, on thy return; but I have kept thy secret, trusting that,
+through thy soul and genius, thy fallen brethren might put off sackcloth
+and feast upon the house-tops."
+
+Almamen looked hard at the keen, sharp, Arab features of the Jew; and at
+length he answered, "And how can Israel be restored? wilt thou fight for
+her?"
+
+"I am too old, son of Issachar, to bear arms; but our tribes are many,
+and our youth strong.  Amid these disturbances between dog and dog--"
+
+"The lion may get his own," interrupted Almamen, impetuously,--"let us
+hope it.  Hast thou heard of the new persecutions against us that the
+false Nazarene king has already commenced in Cordova--persecutions that
+make the heart sick and the blood cold?"
+
+"Alas!" replied Elias, "such woes indeed have not failed to reach mine
+ear; and I have kindred, near and beloved kindred, wealthy and honoured
+men, scattered throughout that land."
+
+"Were it not better that they should die on the field than by the rack?"
+exclaimed Almamen, fiercely.  "God of my fathers! if there be yet a spark
+of manhood left amongst thy people, let thy servant fan it to a flame,
+that shall burn as the fire burns the stubble, so that the earth may bare
+before the blaze!"
+
+"Nay," said Elias, dismayed rather than excited by the vehemence of his
+comrade,--"be not rash, son of Issachar, be not rash: peradventure thou
+wilt but exasperate the wrath of the rulers, and our substance thereby
+will be utterly consumed."
+
+Almamen drew back, placed his hand quietly on the Jew's shoulder, looked
+him hard in the face, and, gently laughing, turned away.
+
+Elias did not attempt to arrest his steps.  "Impracticable," he muttered;
+"impracticable and dangerous!  I always thought so.  He may do us harm:
+were he not so strong and fierce, I would put my knife under his left
+rib.  Verily, gold is a great thing; and--out on me! the knaves at home
+will be wasting the oil, now they know old Elias is abroad."  Thereat the
+Jew drew his cloak around him, and quickened his pace.
+
+Almamen, in the meanwhile, sought, through dark and subterranean
+passages, known only to himself, his accustomed home.  He passed much of
+the night alone; but, ere the morning star announced to the mountain tops
+the presence of the sun, he stood, prepared for his journey, in his
+secret vault, by the door of the subterranean passages, with old Ximen
+beside him.
+
+"I go, Ximen," said Almamen, "upon a doubtful quest: whether I discover
+my daughter, and succeed in bearing her in safety from their
+contaminating grasp, or whether I fall into their snares and perish,
+there is an equal chance that I may return no more to Granada.  Should
+this be so, you will be heir to such wealth as I leave in these places I
+know that your age will be consoled for the lack of children when your
+eyes look upon the laugh of gold."
+
+Ximen bowed low, and mumbled out some inaudible protestations and thanks.
+Almamen sighed heavily as he looked round the room.  "I have evil omens
+in my soul, and evil prophecies in my books," said he, mournfully.  "But
+the worst is here," he added, putting his finger significantly to his
+temples; "the string is stretched--one more blow would snap it."
+
+As he thus said, he opened the door and vanished through that labyrinth
+of galleries by which he was enabled at all times to reach unobserved
+either the palace of the Alhambra or the gardens without the gates of the
+city.
+
+Ximen remained behind a few moments in deep thought.  "All mine if he
+dies!" said he: "all mine if he does not return!  All mine, all mine!
+and I have not a child nor a kinsman in the world to clutch it away from
+me!"  With that he locked the vault, and returned to the upper air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE FUGITIVE AND THE MEETING
+
+In their different directions the rival kings were equally successful.
+Salobrena, but lately conquered by the Christians, was thrown into a
+commotion by the first glimpse of Boabdil's banners; the populace rose,
+beat back their Christian guards, and opened the gates to the last of
+their race of kings.  The garrison alone, to which the Spaniards
+retreated, resisted Boabdil's arms; and, defended by, impregnable walls,
+promised an obstinate and bloody siege.
+
+Meanwhile, Ferdinand had no sooner entered Cordova than his extensive
+scheme of confiscation and holy persecution commenced.  Not only did more
+than five hundred Jews perish in the dark and secret gripe of the Grand
+Inquisitor, but several hundred of the wealthiest Christian families, in
+whose blood was detected the hereditary Jewish taint, were thrown into
+prison; and such as were most fortunate purchased life by the sacrifice
+of half their treasures.  At this time, however, there suddenly broke
+forth a formidable insurrection amongst these miserable subjects--the
+Messenians of the Iberian Sparta.  The Jews were so far aroused from
+their long debasement by omnipotent despair, that a single spark, falling
+on the ashes of their ancient spirit, rekindled the flame of the
+descendants of the fierce warriors of Palestine.  They were encouraged
+and assisted by the suspected Christians, who had been involved in the
+same persecution; and the whole were headed by a man who appeared
+suddenly amongst them, and whose fiery eloquence and martial spirit
+produced, at such a season, the most fervent enthusiasm.  Unhappily, the
+whole details of this singular outbreak are withheld from us; only by
+wary hints and guarded allusions do the Spanish chroniclers apprise us
+of its existence and its perils.  It is clear that all narrative of an
+event that might afford the most dangerous precedent, and was alarming to
+the pride and avarice of the Spanish king, as well as the pious zeal of
+the Church, was strictly forbidden; and the conspiracy was hushed in the
+dread silence of the Inquisition, into whose hands the principal
+conspirators ultimately fell.  We learn, only, that a determined and
+sanguinary struggle was followed by the triumph of Ferdinand, and the
+complete extinction of the treason.
+
+It was one evening, that a solitary fugitive, hard chased by an armed
+troop of the brothers of St. Hermandad, was seen emerging from a wild and
+rocky defile, which opened abruptly on the gardens of a small, and, by
+the absence of fortification and sentries, seemingly deserted, castle.
+Behind him; in the exceeding stillness which characterises the air of a
+Spanish twilight, he heard, at a considerable distance the blast of the
+horn and the tramp of hoofs.  His pursuers, divided into several
+detachments, were scouring the country after him, as the fishermen draw
+their nets, from bank to bank, conscious that the prey they drive before
+the meshes cannot escape them at the last.  The fugitive halted in doubt,
+and gazed round him: he was well-nigh exhausted; his eyes were bloodshot;
+the large drops rolled fast down his brow; his whole frame quivered and
+palpitated, like that of a stag when he stands at bay.  Beyond the castle
+spread a broad plain, far as the eye could reach, without shrub or hollow
+to conceal his form: flight across a space so favourable to his pursuers
+was evidently in vain.  No alternative was left unless he turned back on
+the very path taken by the horsemen, or trusted to such scanty and
+perilous shelter as the copses in the castle garden might afford him.  He
+decided on the latter refuge, cleared the low and lonely wall that girded
+the demesne, and plunged into a thicket of overhanging oaks and
+chestnuts.
+
+At that hour, and in that garden, by the side of a little fountain, were
+seated two females: the one of mature and somewhat advanced years; the
+other, in the flower of virgin youth.  But the flower was prematurely
+faded; and neither the bloom, nor sparkle, nor undulating play of
+feature, that should have suited her age, was visible in the marble
+paleness and contemplative sadness of her beautiful countenance.
+
+"Alas! my young friend," said the elder of these ladies, "it is in these
+hours of solitude and calm that we are most deeply impressed with the
+nothingness of life.  Thou, my sweet convert, art now the object, no
+longer of my compassion, but my envy; and earnestly do I feel convinced
+of the blessed repose thy spirit will enjoy in the lap of the Mother
+Church.  Happy are they who die young! but thrice happy they who die in
+the spirit rather than the flesh: dead to sin, but not to virtue; to
+terror, not to hope; to man, but not to God!"
+
+"Dear senora," replied the young maiden, mournfully, "were I alone on
+earth, Heaven is my witness with what deep and thankful resignation I
+should take the holy vows, and forswear the past; but the heart remains
+human, however divine the hope that it may cherish.  And sometimes I
+start, and think of home, of childhood, of my strange but beloved father,
+deserted and childless in his old age."
+
+"Thine, Leila," returned the elder Senora, "are but the sorrows our
+nature is doomed to.  What matter, whether absence or death sever the
+affections?  Thou lamentest a father; I, a son, dead in the pride of his
+youth and beauty--a husband, languishing in the fetters of the Moor.
+Take comfort for thy sorrows, in the reflection that sorrow is the
+heritage of all."
+
+Ere Leila could reply, the orange-boughs that sheltered the spot where
+they sat were put aside, and between the women and the fountain stood the
+dark form of Almamen the Israelite.  Leila rose, shrieked, and flung
+herself, unconscious, on his breast.
+
+"O Lord of Israel!" cried Almamen, in atone of deep anguish.  "I, then,
+at last regain my child?  Do I press her to my heart? and is it only for
+that brief moment, when I stand upon the brink of death?  Leila, my
+child, look up! smile upon thy father; let him feel, on his maddening and
+burning brow, the sweet breath of the last of his race, and bear with
+him, at least, one holy and gentle thought to the dark grave."
+
+"My father! is it indeed my father?" said Leila, recovering herself, and
+drawing back, that she might assure herself of that familiar face; "it is
+thou!  it is--it is!  Oh! what blessed chance brings us together?"
+
+"That chance is the destiny that hurries me to my tomb," answered
+Almamen, solemnly.  "Hark! hear you not the sound of their rushing
+steeds--their impatient voices?  They are on me now!"
+
+"Who?  Of whom speakest thou?"
+
+"My pursuers--the horsemen of the Spaniard."
+
+"Oh, senora, save him!" cried Leila, turning to Donna Inez, whom both
+father and child had hitherto forgotten, and who now stood gazing upon
+Almamen with wondering and anxious eyes.  "Whither can he fly?  The
+vaults of the castle may conceal him.  This way-hasten!"
+
+"Stay," said Inez, trembling, and approaching close to Almamen: "do I see
+aright? and, amidst the dark change of years and trial, do I recognise
+that stately form, which once contrasted to the sad eye of a mother the
+drooping and faded form of her only son?  Art thou not he who saved my
+boy from the pestilence, who accompanied him to the shores of Naples, and
+consigned him to these arms?  Look on me! dost thou not recall the mother
+of thy friend?"
+
+"I recall thy features dimly and as in a dream," answered the Hebrew;
+"and while thou speakest, there rush upon me the memories of an earlier
+time, in lands where Leila first looked upon the day, and her mother sang
+to me at sunset by the stream of the Euphrates, and on the sites of
+departed empires.  Thy son--I remember now: I had friendship then with a
+Christian--for I was still young."
+
+"Waste not the time--father--senora!" cried Leila, impatiently clinging
+still to her father's breast.
+
+"You are right; nor shall your sire, in whom I thus wonderfully recognise
+my son's friend, perish if I can save him."
+
+Inez then conducted her strange guest to a small door in the rear of the
+castle; and after leading him through some of the principal apartments,
+left him in one of the tiring-rooms adjoining her own chamber, and the
+entrance to which the arras concealed.  She rightly judged this a safer
+retreat than the vaults of the castle might afford, since her great name
+and known intimacy with Isabel would preclude all suspicion of her
+abetting in the escape of the fugitive, and keep those places the most
+secure in which, without such aid, he could not have secreted himself.
+
+In a few minutes, several of the troop arrived at the castle, and on
+learning the name of its owner contented themselves with searching the
+gardens, and the lower and more exposed apartments; and then recommending
+to the servants a vigilant look-out remounted, and proceeded to scour the
+plain, over which now slowly fell the starlight and shade of night.  When
+Leila stole, at last, to the room in which Almamen was hid, she found
+him, stretched on his mantle, in a deep sleep.  Exhausted by all he had
+undergone, and his rigid nerves, as it were, relaxed by the sudden
+softness of that interview with his child, the slumber of that fiery
+wanderer was as calm as an infant's.  And their relation almost seemed
+reversed; and the daughter to be as a mother watching over her offspring,
+when Leila seated herself softly by him, fixing her eyes--to which the
+tears came ever, ever to be brushed away-upon his worn but tranquil
+features, made yet more serene by the quiet light that glimmered through
+the casement.  And so passed the hours of that night; and the father and
+the child--the meek convert, the revengeful fanatic--were under the same
+roof.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ALMAMEN HEARS AND SEES, BUT REFUSES TO BELIEVE; FOR THE BRAIN,
+OVERWROUGHT, GROWS DULL, EVEN IN THE KEENEST.
+
+The dawn broke slowly upon the chamber, and Almamen still slept.  It was
+the Sabbath of the Christians--that day on which the Saviour rose from
+the dead--thence named so emphatically and sublimely by the early Church
+THE LORD'S DAY.
+
+     [Before the Christian era, the Sunday was, however, called the
+     Lord's day--i.e., the day of the Lord the Sun.]
+
+And as the ray of the sun flashed in the east it fell like a glory, over
+a crucifix, placed in the deep recess of the Gothic casement; and brought
+startlingly before the eyes of Leila that face upon which the rudest of
+the Catholic sculptors rarely fail to preserve the mystic and awful union
+of the expiring anguish of the man with the lofty patience of the God.
+It looked upon her, that face; it invited, it encouraged, while it
+thrilled and subdued.  She stole gently from the side of her father; she
+crept to the spot, and flung herself on her knees beside the consecrated
+image.
+
+"Support me, O Redeemer!" she murmured--"support thy creature!
+strengthen her steps in the blessed path, though it divide her
+irrevocably from all that on earth she loves: and if there be a sacrifice
+in her solemn choice, accept, O Thou, the Crucified! accept it, in part
+atonement of the crime of her stubborn race; and, hereafter, let the lips
+of a maiden of Judaea implore thee, not in vain, for some mitigation of
+the awful curse that hath fallen justly upon her tribe."
+
+As broken by low sobs, and in a choked and muttered voice, Leila poured
+forth her prayer, she was startled by a deep groan; and turning, in alarm
+she saw that Almamen had awaked, and, leaning on his arm, was now bending
+upon her his dark eyes, once more gleaming with all their wonted fire.
+
+"Speak," he said, as she coweringly hid her face, "speak to me, or I
+shall be turned to stone by one horrid thought.  It is not before that
+symbol that thou kneelest in adoration; and my sense wanders, if it tell
+me that thy broken words expressed the worship of an apostate?  In mercy,
+speak!"
+
+"Father!" began Leila; but her lips refused to utter more than that
+touching and holy word.
+
+Almamen rose; and plucking the hands from her face, gazed on her some
+moments, as if he would penetrate her very soul; and Leila, recovering
+her courage in the pause, by degrees met his eyes unquailing--her pure
+and ingenuous brow raised to his, and sadness, but not guilt, speaking
+from every line of that lovely face.
+
+"Thou dost not tremble," said Almamen, at length, breaking the silence,
+"and I have erred.  Thou art not the criminal I deemed thee.  Come to my
+arms!"
+
+"Alas!" said Leila, obeying the instinct, and casting herself upon that
+rugged bosom.  "I will dare, at least, not to disavow my God.  Father!
+by that dread anathema which is on our race, which has made us homeless
+and powerless--outcasts and strangers in the land; by the persecution and
+anguish we have known, teach thy lordly heart that we are rightly
+punished for the persecution and the anguish we doomed to Him, whose
+footstep hallowed our native earth!  FIRST, IN THE HISTORY of THE WORLD,
+DID THE STERN HEBREWS INFLICT UPON MANKIND THE AWFUL CRIME OF PERSECUTION
+FOR OPINIONS SAKE.  The seed we sowed hath brought forth the Dead Sea
+fruit upon which we feed.  I asked for resignation and for hope: I looked
+upon yonder cross, and I found both.  Harden not thy heart; listen to thy
+child; wise though thou be, and weak though her woman spirit, listen to
+me."
+
+"Be dumb!" cried Almamen, in such a voice as might have come from the
+charnel, so ghostly and deathly sounded its hollow tone; then, recoiling
+some steps, he placed both his hands upon his temples, and muttered,
+"Mad, mad! yes, yes, this is but a delirium, and I am tempted with a
+devil!  Oh, my child!" he resumed, in a voice that became, on the sudden,
+inexpressibly tender and imploring, "I have been sorely tried; and I
+dreamt a feverish dream of passion and revenge.  Be thine the lips, and
+thine the soothing hand, that shall wake me from it.  Let us fly for ever
+from these hated lands; let us leave to these miserable infidels their
+bloody contest, careless which shall fall.  To a soil on which the iron
+heel does not clang, to an air where man's orisons rise, in solitude, to
+the Great Jehovah, let us hasten our weary steps.  Come! while the castle
+yet sleeps, let us forth unseen--the father and the child.  We will hold
+sweet commune by the way.  And hark ye, Leila," he added, in a low and
+abrupt whisper, "talk not to me of yonder symbol; for thy God is a
+jealous God, and hath no likeness in the graven image."
+
+Had he been less exhausted by long travail and racking thoughts, far
+different, perhaps, would have been the language of a man so stern.  But
+circumstance impresses the hardest substance; and despite his native
+intellect and affected superiority over others, no one, perhaps, was more
+human, in his fitful moods,--his weakness and his strength, his passion
+and his purpose,--than that strange man, who had dared, in his dark
+studies and arrogant self-will, to aspire beyond humanity.
+
+That was, indeed, a perilous moment for the young convert.  The
+unexpected softness of her father utterly subdued her; nor was she
+sufficiently possessed of that all-denying zeal of the Catholic
+enthusiast to which every human tie and earthly duty has been often
+sacrificed on the shrine of a rapt and metaphysical piety.  Whatever her
+opinions, her new creed, her secret desire of the cloister, fed as it was
+by the sublime, though fallacious notion, that in her conversion, her
+sacrifice, the crimes of her race might be expiated in the eyes of Him
+whose death had been the great atonement of a world; whatever such higher
+thoughts and sentiments, they gave way, at that moment, to the
+irresistible impulse of household nature and of filial duty.  Should she
+desert her father, and could that desertion be a virtue?  Her heart put
+and answered both questions in a breath.  She approached Almamen, placed
+her hand in his, and said, steadily and calmly, "Father, wheresoever thou
+goest, I will wend with thee."
+
+But Heaven ordained to each another destiny than might have been theirs,
+had the dictates of that impulse been fulfilled.
+
+Ere Almamen could reply, a trumpet sounded clear and loud at the gate.
+
+"Hark!" he said, griping his dagger, and starting back to a sense of the
+dangers round him.  "They come--my pursuers and my murtherers!--but these
+limbs are sacred from--the rack."
+
+Even that sound of ominous danger was almost a relief to Leila: "I will
+go," she said, "and learn what the blast betokens; remain here--be
+cautious--I will return."
+
+Several minutes, however, elapsed before Leila reappeared; she was
+accompanied by Donna Inez, whose paleness and agitation betokened her
+alarm.  A courier had arrived at the gate to announce the approach of the
+queen, who, with a considerable force, was on her way to join Ferdinand,
+then, in the usual rapidity of his movements, before one of the Moorish
+towns that had revolted from his allegiance.  It was impossible for
+Almamen to remain in safety in the castle; and the only hope of escape
+was departing immediately and in disguise.
+
+"I have," she said, "a trusty and faithful servant with me in the castle,
+to whom I can, without anxiety, confide the charge of your safety; and
+even if suspected by the way, my name, and the companionship of my
+servant, will remove all obstacles; it is not a long journey hence to
+Guadix, which has already revolted to the Moors: there, till the armies
+of Ferdinand surround the walls, your refuge may be secure."
+
+Almamen remained for some moments plunged in a gloomy silence.  But, at
+length, he signified his assent to the plan proposed, and Donna Inez
+hastened to give the directions of his intended guide.
+
+"Leila," said the Hebrew, when left alone with his daughter, "think not
+that it is for mine own safety that I stoop to this flight from thee.
+No! but never till thou wert lost to me, by mine own rash confidence in
+another, did I know how dear to my heart was the last scion of my race,
+the sole memorial left to me of thy mother's love.  Regaining thee once
+more, a new and a soft existence opens upon my eyes; and the earth seems
+to change, as by a sudden revolution, from winter into spring.  For thy
+sake, I consent to use all the means that man's intellect can devise for
+preservation from my foes.  Meanwhile, here will rest my soul; to this
+spot, within one week from this period--no matter through what danger I
+pass--I shall return: then I shall claim thy promise.  I will arrange all
+things for our flight, and no stone shall harm thy footstep by the way.
+The Lord of Israel be with thee, my daughter, and strengthen thy heart!
+But," he added, tearing himself from her embrace, as he heard steps
+ascending to the chamber, "deem not that, in this most fond and fatherly
+affection, I forget what is due to me and thee.  Think not that my love
+is only the brute and insensate feeling of the progenitor to the
+offspring: I love thee for thy mother's sake--I love thee for thine own--
+I love thee yet more for the sake of Israel.  If thou perish, if thou art
+lost to us, thou, the last daughter of the house of Issachar, then the
+haughtiest family of God's great people is extinct."
+
+Here Inez appeared at the door, but withdrew, at the impatient and lordly
+gesture of Almamen, who, without further heed of the interruption,
+resumed:
+
+"I look to thee, and thy seed, for the regeneration which I once trusted,
+fool that I was, mine own day might see effected.  Let this pass.  Thou
+art under the roof of the Nazarene.  I will not believe that the arts we
+have resisted against fire and sword can prevail with thee.  But, if I
+err, awful will be the penalty!  Could I once know that thou hadst
+forsaken thy ancestral creed, though warrior and priest stood by thee,
+though thousands and ten thousands were by thy right hand, this steel
+should save the race of Issachar from dishonour.  Beware!  Thou weepest;
+but, child, I warn, not threaten.  God be with thee!"
+
+He wrung the cold hand of his child, turned to the door, and, after such
+disguise as the brief time allowed him could afford, quitted the castle
+with his Spanish guide, who, accustomed to the benevolence of his
+mistress, obeyed her injunction without wonder, though not without
+suspicion.
+
+The third part of an hour had scarcely elapsed, and the sun was yet on
+the mountain-tops, when Isabel arrived.  She came to announce that the
+outbreaks of the Moorish towns in the vicinity rendered the half-
+fortified castle of her friend no longer a secure abode; and she honoured
+the Spanish lady with a command to accompany her, with her female suite,
+to the camp of Ferdinand.
+
+Leila received the intelligence with a kind of stupor.  Her interview
+with her father, the strong and fearful contests of emotion which that
+interview occasioned, left her senses faint and dizzy; and when she found
+herself, by the twilight star, once more with the train of Isabel, the
+only feeling that stirred actively through her stunned and bewildered
+mind, was, that the hand of Providence conducted her from a temptation
+that, the Reader of all hearts knew, the daughter and woman would have
+been too feeble to resist.
+
+On the fifth day from his departure, Almamen returned to find the castle
+deserted, and his daughter gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+IN THE FERMENT OF GREAT EVENTS THE DREGS RISE.
+
+The Israelites did not limit their struggles to the dark conspiracy to
+which allusion has been made.  In some of the Moorish towns that revolted
+from Ferdinand, they renounced the neutrality they had hitherto
+maintained between Christian and Moslem.  Whether it was that they were
+inflamed by the fearful and wholesale barbarities enforced by Ferdinand
+and the Inquisition against their tribe, or whether they were stirred up
+by one of their own order, in whom was recognised the head of their most
+sacred family; or whether, as is most probable, both causes combined--
+certain it is, that they manifested a feeling that was thoroughly unknown
+to the ordinary habits and policy of that peaceable people.  They bore
+great treasure to the public stock--they demanded arms, and, under their
+own leaders, were admitted, though with much jealousy and precaution,
+into the troops of the arrogant and disdainful Moslems.
+
+In this conjunction of hostile planets, Ferdinand had recourse to his
+favourite policy of wile and stratagem.  Turning against the Jews the
+very treaty Almamen had once sought to obtain in their favour, he caused
+it to be circulated, privately, that the Jews, anxious to purchase their
+peace with him, had promised to betray the Moorish towns, and Granada
+itself into his hands.  The paper, which Ferdinand himself had signed in
+his interview with Almamen, and of which, on the capture of the Hebrew,
+he had taken care to repossess himself, he gave to a spy whom he sent,
+disguised as a Jew, into one of the revolted cities.
+
+Private intelligence reached the Moorish ringleader of the arrival of
+this envoy.  He was seized, and the document found on his person.  The
+form of the words drawn up by Almamen (who had carefully omitted mention
+of his own name--whether that which he assumed, or that which, by birth,
+he should have borne) merely conveyed the compact, that if by a Jew,
+within two weeks from the date therein specified, Granada was delivered
+to the Christian king, the Jews should enjoy certain immunities and
+rights.
+
+The discovery of this document filled the Moors of the city to which the
+spy had been sent with a fury that no words can describe.  Always
+distrusting their allies, they now imagined they perceived the sole
+reason of their sudden enthusiasm, of their demand for arms.  The mob
+rose: the principal Jews were seized and massacred without trial; some by
+the wrath of the multitude, some by the slower tortures of the
+magistrate.  Messengers were sent to the different revolted towns, and,
+above all, to Granada itself, to put the Moslems on their guard against
+these unhappy enemies of either party.  At once covetous and ferocious,
+the Moors rivalled the Inquisition in their cruelty, and Ferdinand in
+their extortion.
+
+It was the dark fate of Almamen, as of most premature and heated
+liberators of the enslaved, to double the terrors and the evils he had
+sought to cure.  The warning arrived at Granada at a time in which the
+vizier, Jusef, had received the commands of his royal master, still at
+the siege of Salobrena, to use every exertion to fill the wasting
+treasuries.  Fearful of new exactions against the Moors, the vizier
+hailed, as a message from Heaven, so just a pretext for a new and
+sweeping impost on the Jews.  The spendthrift violence of the mob was
+restrained, because it was headed by the authorities, who were wisely
+anxious that the state should have no rival in the plunder it required;
+and the work of confiscation and robbery was carried on with a majestic
+and calm regularity, which redounded no less to the credit of Jusef than
+it contributed to the coffers of the king.
+
+It was late, one evening, when Ximen was making his usual round through
+the chambers of Almamen's house.  As he glanced around at the various
+articles of wealth and luxury, he ever and anon burst into a low, fitful
+chuckle, rubbed his lean hands, and mumbled out, "If my master should
+die! if my master should die!"
+
+While thus engaged, he heard a confused and distant shout; and, listening
+attentively, he distinguished a cry, grown of late sufficiently familiar,
+of, "Live, Jusef the just--perish, the traitor Jews!"
+
+"Ah!" said Ximen, as the whole character of his face changed; "some new
+robbery upon our race!  And this is thy work, son of Issachar!  Madman
+that thou wert, to be wiser than thy sires, and seek to dupe the
+idolaters in the council chamber and the camp--their field, their vantage
+ground; as the bazaar and the market-place are ours.  None suspect that
+the potent santon is the traitor Jew; but I know it!  I could give thee
+to the bow-string--and, if thou Overt dead, all thy goods and gold, even
+to the mule at the manger, would be old Ximen's."
+
+He paused at that thought, shut his eyes, and smiled at the prospect his
+fancy conjured up and completing his survey, retired to his own chamber,
+which opened, by a small door, upon one of the back courts.  He had
+scarcely reached the room, when he heard a low tap at the outer door;
+and, when it was thrice repeated, he knew that it was one of his Jewish-
+brethren.  For Ximen--as years, isolation, and avarice gnawed away
+whatever of virtue once put forth some meagre fruit from a heart
+naturally bare and rocky--still reserved one human feeling towards his
+countrymen.  It was the bond which unites all the persecuted: and Ximen
+loved them, because he could not envy their happiness.  The power--the
+knowledge--the lofty, though wild designs of his master, stung and
+humbled him--he secretly hated, because he could not compassionate or
+contemn him.  But the bowed frame, and slavish voice, and timid nerves of
+his crushed brotherhood presented to the old man the likeness of things
+that could not exult over him.  Debased and aged, and solitary as he was,
+he felt a kind of wintry warmth in the thought that even he had the power
+to protect!
+
+He thus maintained an intercourse with his fellow Israelites; and often,
+in their dangers, had afforded them a refuge in the numerous vaults and
+passages, the ruins of which may still be descried beneath the mouldering
+foundations of that mysterious mansion.  And, as the house was generally
+supposed the property of an absent emir, and had been especially
+recommended to the care of the cadis by Boabdil, who alone of the Moors
+knew it as one of the dwelling-places of the santon, whose ostensible
+residence was in apartments allotted to him within the palace,--it was,
+perhaps, the sole place within Granada which afforded an unsuspected and
+secure refuge to the hunted Israelites.
+
+When Ximen recognised the wonted signal of his brethren, he crawled to
+the door; and, after the precaution of a Hebrew watchword, replied to in
+the same tongue, he gave admittance to the tall and stooping frame of the
+rich Elias.
+
+"Worthy and excellent master!" said Ximen, after again securing the
+entrance; "what can bring the honoured and wealthy Elias to the chamber
+of the poor hireling?"
+
+"My friend," answered the Jew; "call me not wealthy, nor honoured.  For
+years I have dwelt within the city; safe and respected, even by the
+Moslemin; verily and because I have purchased with jewel and treasure the
+protection of the king and the great men.  But now, alas! in the sudden
+wrath of the heathen--ever imagining vain things--I have been summoned
+into the presence of their chief rabbi, and only escaped the torture by a
+sum that ten years of labour and the sweat of my brow cannot replace.
+Ximen! the bitterest thought of all is, that the frenzy of one of our own
+tribe has brought this desolation upon Israel."
+
+"My lord speaks riddles," said Ximen, with well-feigned astonishment in
+his glassy eyes.
+
+"Why dost thou wind and turn, good Ximen?" said the Jew, shaking his
+head; "thou knowest well what my words drive at.  Thy master is the
+pretended Almamen; and that recreant Israelite (if Israelite, indeed,
+still be one who hath forsaken the customs and the forms of his
+forefathers) is he who hath stirred up the Jews of Cordova and Guadix,
+and whose folly hath brought upon us these dread things.  Holy Abraham!
+this Jew hath cost me more than fifty Nazarenes and a hundred Moors."
+
+Ximen remained silent; and, the tongue of Elias being loosed by the
+recollection of his sad loss, the latter continued: "At the first, when
+the son of Issachar reappeared, and became a counsellor in the king's
+court, I indeed, who had led him, then a child, to the synagogue--for old
+Issachar was to me dear as a brother--recognised him by his eyes and
+voice: but I exulted in his craft and concealment; I believed he would
+work mighty things for his poor brethren, and would obtain, for his
+father's friend, the supplying of the king's wives and concubines with
+raiment and cloth of price.  But years have passed: he hath not lightened
+our burthens; and, by the madness that hath of late come over him,
+heading the heathen armies, and drawing our brethren into danger and
+death, he hath deserved the curse of the synagogue, and the wrath of our
+whole race.  I find, from our brethren who escaped the Inquisition by the
+surrender of their substance, that his unskilful and frantic schemes were
+the main pretext for the sufferings of the righteous under the Nazarene;
+and, again, the same schemes bring on us the same oppression from the
+Moor.  Accursed be he, and may his name perish!"
+
+Ximen sighed, but remained silent, conjecturing to what end the Jew would
+bring his invectives.  He was not long in suspense.  After a pause, Elias
+recommenced, in an altered and more careless tone, "He is rich, this son
+of Issachar--wondrous rich."
+
+"He has treasures scattered over half the cities of Africa and the
+Orient," said Ximen.
+
+"Thou seest, then, my friend, that thy master hath doomed me to a heavy
+loss.  I possess his secret; I could give him up to the king's wrath; I
+could bring him to the death.  But I am just and meek: let him pay my
+forfeiture, and I will forego mine anger."
+
+"Thou dost not know him," said Ximen, alarmed at the thought of a
+repayment, which might grievously diminish his own heritage--of Almamen's
+effects in Granada.
+
+"But if I threaten him with exposure?"
+
+"Thou wouldst feed the fishes of the Darro," interrupted Ximen.  "Nay,
+even now, if Almamen learn that thou knowest his birth and race, tremble!
+for thy days in the land will be numbered."
+
+"Verily," exclaimed the Jew, in great alarm, "then have I fallen into the
+snare; for these lips revealed to him that knowledge."
+
+"Then is the righteous Elias a lost man, within ten days from that in
+which Almamen returns to Granada.  I know my master: and blood is to him
+as water."
+
+"Let the wicked be consumed!" cried Elias, furiously stamping his foot,
+while fire flashed from his dark eyes, for the instinct of self-
+preservation made him fierce.  "Not from me, however," he added, more
+calmly, "will come his danger.  Know that there be more than a hundred
+Jews in this city, who have sworn his death; Jews who, flying hither from
+Cordova, have seen their parents murdered and their substance seized, and
+who behold, in the son of Issachar, the cause of the murder and the
+spoil.  They have detected the impostor, and a hundred knives are
+whetting even now for his blood: let him look to it.  Ximen, I have
+spoken to thee as the foolish speak; thou mayest betray me to thy lord;
+but from what I have learned of thee from our brethren, I have poured my
+heart into thy bosom without fear.  Wilt thou betray Israel, or assist us
+to smite the traitor?"
+
+Ximen mused for a moment, and his meditation conjured up the treasures of
+his master.  He stretched forth his right hand to Elias; and when the
+Israelites parted, they were friends.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+BOADBIL'S RETURN.--THE REAPPEARANCE OF GRANADA.
+
+The third morning from this interview, a rumour reached Granada that
+Boabdil had been repulsed in his assault on the citadel of Salobrena with
+a severe loss; that Hernando del Pulgar had succeeded in conducting to
+its relief a considerable force; and that the army of Ferdinand was on
+its march against the Moorish king.  In the midst of the excitement
+occasioned by these reports, a courier arrived to confirm their truth,
+and to announce the return of Boabdil.
+
+At nightfall, the king, preceding his army, entered the city, and
+hastened to bury himself in the Alhambra.  As he passed dejectedly into
+the women's apartments, his stern mother met him.
+
+"My son," she said, bitterly, "dost thou return and not a conqueror?"
+
+Before Boabdil could reply, a light and rapid step sped through the
+glittering arcades; and weeping with joy, and breaking all the Oriental
+restraints, Amine fell upon his bosom.  "My beloved! my king! light of
+mine eyes! thou hast returned.  Welcome--for thou art safe."
+
+The different form of these several salutations struck Boabdil forcibly.
+"Thou seest, my mother," said he, "how great the contrast between those
+who love us from affection, and those who love us from pride.  In
+adversity, God keep me, O my mother, from thy tongue!"
+
+"But I love thee from pride, too," murmured Amine; "and for that reason
+is thine adversity dear to me, for it takes thee from the world to make
+thee more mine own and I am proud of the afflictions that my hero shares
+with his slave."
+
+"Lights there, and the banquet!" cried the king, turning from his haughty
+mother; "we will feast and be merry while we may.  My adored Amine, kiss
+me!"
+
+Proud, melancholy, and sensitive as he was in that hour of reverse,
+Boabdil felt no grief: such balm has Love for our sorrows, when its wings
+are borrowed from the dove!  And although the laws of the Eastern life
+confined to the narrow walls of a harem the sphere of Amine's gentle
+influence; although, even in romance, THE NATURAL compels us to portray
+her vivid and rich colours only in a faint and hasty sketch, yet still
+are left to the outline the loveliest and the noblest features of the
+sex--the spirit to arouse us to exertion, the softness to console us in
+our fall!
+
+While Boabdil and the body of the army remained in the city, Muza, with a
+chosen detachment of the horse, scoured the country to visit the newly-
+acquired cities, and sustain their courage.
+
+From this charge he was recalled by the army of Ferdinand, which once
+more poured down into the Vega, completely devastated its harvests, and
+then swept back to consummate the conquests of the revolted towns.  To
+this irruption succeeded an interval of peace--the calm before the storm.
+From every part of Spain, the most chivalric and resolute of the Moors,
+taking advantage of the pause in the contest, flocked to Granada; and
+that city became the focus of all that paganism in Europe possessed of
+brave and determined spirits.
+
+At length, Ferdinand, completing his conquests, and having refilled his
+treasury, mustered the whole force of his dominions--forty thousand foot,
+and ten thousand horse; and once more, and for the last time, appeared
+before the walls of Granada.  A solemn and prophetic determination filled
+both besiegers and besieged: each felt that the crowning crisis was at
+hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE CONFLAGRATION.--THE MAJESTY OF AN INDIVIDUAL PASSION IN THE MIDST OF
+HOSTILE THOUSANDS.
+
+It was the eve of a great and general assault upon Granada, deliberately
+planned by the chiefs of the Christian army.  The Spanish camp (the most
+gorgeous Christendom had ever known) gradually grew calm and hushed.  The
+shades deepened--the stars burned forth more serene and clear.  Bright,
+in that azure air, streamed the silken tents of the court, blazoned with
+heraldic devices, and crowned by gaudy banners, which, filled by a brisk
+and murmuring wind from the mountains, flaunted gaily on their gilded
+staves.  In the centre of the camp rose the pavilion of the queen--a
+palace in itself.  Lances made its columns; brocade and painted arras its
+walls; and the space covered by its numerous compartments would have
+contained the halls and outworks of an ordinary castle.  The pomp of that
+camp realised the wildest dreams of Gothic, coupled with Oriental
+splendour; something worthy of a Tasso to have imagined, or a Beckford to
+create.  Nor was the exceeding costliness of the more courtly tents
+lessened in effect by those of the soldiery in the outskirts, many of
+which were built from boughs, still retaining their leaves--savage and
+picturesque huts;--as if, realising old legends, wild men of the woods
+had taken up the cross, and followed the Christian warriors against the
+swarthy followers of Termagaunt and Mahound.  There, then, extended that
+mighty camp in profound repose, as the midnight threw deeper and longer
+shadows over the sward from the tented avenues and canvas streets.  It
+was at that hour that Isabel, in the most private recess of her pavilion,
+was employed in prayer for the safety of the king, and the issue of the
+Sacred War.  Kneeling before the altar of that warlike oratory, her
+spirit became rapt and absorbed from earth in the intensity of her
+devotions; and in the whole camp (save the sentries), the eyes of that
+pious queen were, perhaps, the only ones unclosed.  All was profoundly
+still; her guards, her attendants, were gone to rest; and the, tread of
+the sentinel, without that immense pavilion, was not heard through the
+silken walls.
+
+It was then that Isabel suddenly felt a strong grasp upon her shoulder,
+as she still knelt by the altar.  A faint shriek burst from her lips; she
+turned, and the broad curved knife of an eastern warrior gleamed close
+before her eyes.
+
+"Hush! utter a cry, breathe more loudly than thy wont, and, queen though
+thou art, in the centre of swarming thousands, thou diest!"
+
+Such were the words that reached the ear of the royal Castilian,
+whispered by a man of stern and commanding, though haggard aspect.
+
+"What is thy purpose? wouldst thou murder me?" said the queen, trembling,
+perhaps for the first time, before a mortal presence.
+
+"Thy life is safe, if thou strivest not to delude or to deceive me.  Our
+time is short--answer me.  I am Almamen, the Hebrew.  Where is the
+hostage rendered to thy hands?  I claim my child.  She is with thee--I
+know it.  In what corner of thy camp?"
+
+"Rude stranger!" said Isabel, recovering somewhat from her alarm,--"thy
+daughter is removed, I trust for ever, from thine impious reach.  She is
+not within the camp."
+
+"Lie not, Queen of Castile," said Almamen, raising his knife; "for days
+and weeks I have tracked thy steps, followed thy march, haunted even thy
+slumbers, though men of mail stood as guards around them; and I know that
+my daughter has been with thee.  Think not I brave this danger without
+resolves the most fierce and dread.  Answer me, where is my child?"
+
+"Many days since," said Isabel, awed, despite herself, by her strange
+position,--"thy daughter left the camp for the house of God.  It was her
+own desire.  The Saviour hath received her into His fold."
+
+Had a thousand lances pierced his heart, the vigour and energy of life
+could scarce more suddenly have deserted Almamen.  The rigid muscles of
+his countenance relaxed at once, from resolve and menace, into
+unutterable horror, anguish, and despair.  He recoiled several steps; his
+knees trembled violently; he seemed stunned by a death-blow.  Isabel, the
+boldest and haughtiest of her sex, seized that moment of reprieve; she
+sprang forward, darted through the draperies into the apartments occupied
+by her train, and, in a moment, the pavilion resounded with her cries for
+aid.  The sentinels were aroused; retainers sprang from their pillows;
+they heard the cause of the alarm; they made to the spot; when, ere they
+reached its partition of silk, a vivid and startling blaze burst forth
+upon them.  The tent was on fire.  The materials fed the flame like
+magic.  Some of the guards had yet the courage to dash forward; but the
+smoke and the glare drove them back, blinded and dizzy.  Isabel herself
+had scarcely time for escape, so rapid was the conflagration.  Alarmed
+for her husband, she rushed to his tent--to find him already awakened by
+the noise, and issuing from its entrance, his drawn sword in his hand.
+The wind, which had a few minutes before but curled the triumphant
+banners, now circulated the destroying flame.  It spread from tent to
+tent, almost as a flash of lightning that shoots along neighbouring
+clouds.  The camp was in one continued blaze, ere a man could dream of
+checking the conflagration.
+
+Not waiting to hear the confused tale of his royal consort, Ferdinand,
+exclaiming, "The Moors have done this--they will be on us!" ordered the
+drums to beat and the trumpets to sound, and hastened in person, wrapped
+merely in his long mantle, to alarm his chiefs.  While that well-
+disciplined and veteran army, fearing every moment the rally of the foe,
+endeavoured rapidly to form themselves into some kind of order, the flame
+continued to spread till the whole heavens were illumined.  By its light,
+cuirass and helmet glowed, as in the furnace, and the armed men seemed
+rather like life-like and lurid meteors than human forms.  The city of
+Granada was brought near to them by the intensity of the glow; and, as a
+detachment of cavalry spurred from the camp to meet the anticipated
+surprise of the Paynims, they saw, upon the walls and roofs of Granada,
+the Moslems clustering and their spears gleaming.  But, equally amazed
+with the Christians, and equally suspicious of craft and design, the
+Moors did not issue from their gates.  Meanwhile the conflagration, as
+rapid to die as to begin, grew fitful and feeble; and the night seemed to
+fall with a melancholy darkness over the ruin of that silken city.
+
+Ferdinand summoned his council.  He had now perceived it was no ambush of
+the Moors.  The account of Isabel, which, at last, he comprehended; the
+strange and almost miraculous manner in which Almamen had baffled his
+guards, and penetrated to the royal tent; might have aroused his Gothic
+superstition, while it relieved his more earthly apprehensions, if he had
+not remembered the singular, but far from supernatural dexterity with
+which Eastern warriors and even robbers continued then, as now, to elude
+the most vigilant precautions and baffle the most wakeful guards; and it
+was evident that the fire which burned the camp of an army had been
+kindled merely to gratify the revenge, or favour the escape of an
+individual.  Shaking, therefore, from his kingly spirit the thrill of
+superstitious awe that the greatness of the disaster, when associated
+with the name of a sorcerer, at first occasioned, he resolved to make
+advantage out of misfortune itself.  The excitement, the wrath of the
+troops, produced the temper most fit for action.
+
+"And Heaven," said the King of Spain to his knights and chiefs, as they
+assembled round him, "has, in this conflagration, announced to the
+warriors of the Cross, that henceforth their camp shall be the palaces of
+Granada!  Woe to the Moslem with to-morrow's sun!"
+
+Arms clanged, and swords leaped from their sheaths, as the Christian
+knights echoed the anathema--"WOE TO THE MOSLEM!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+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 ***
+By Edward Bulwer Lytton
+
+** This file should be named b201w10.txt or b201w10.zip ***
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, b201w11.txt
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, b201w10a.txt
+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger  [widger@cecomet.net]
+
+Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
+of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
+Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
+even years after the official publication date.
+
+Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.
+
+Most people start at our Web sites at:
+http://gutenberg.net or
+http://promo.net/pg
+
+These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
+Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
+eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
+
+
+Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
+can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
+also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
+indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
+announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
+
+http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
+ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
+
+Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
+
+Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
+as it appears in our Newsletters.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
+to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
+files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
+We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
+If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
+will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
+
+Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
+
+eBooks Year Month
+
+    1  1971 July
+   10  1991 January
+  100  1994 January
+ 1000  1997 August
+ 1500  1998 October
+ 2000  1999 December
+ 2500  2000 December
+ 3000  2001 November
+ 4000  2001 October/November
+ 6000  2002 December*
+ 9000  2003 November*
+10000  2004 January*
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
+to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
+and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
+Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
+Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
+Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
+Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
+Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
+Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
+
+We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
+that have responded.
+
+As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
+will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
+Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
+
+In answer to various questions we have received on this:
+
+We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
+request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
+you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
+just ask.
+
+While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
+not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
+donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
+donate.
+
+International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
+how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
+deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
+ways.
+
+Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
+
+Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+PMB 113
+1739 University Ave.
+Oxford, MS 38655-4109
+
+Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
+method other than by check or money order.
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
+the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
+[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
+tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
+requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
+made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+You can get up to date donation information online at:
+
+http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html
+
+
+***
+
+If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
+you can always email directly to:
+
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
+
+We would prefer to send you information by email.
+
+
+**The Legal Small Print**
+
+
+(Three Pages)
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
+you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
+is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
+through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
+Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
+under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
+any commercial products without permission.
+
+To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
+receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
+all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from. If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
+and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
+with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
+texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
+legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
+following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
+[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
+or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word
+     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
+     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
+     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
+     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
+     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
+     let us know your plans and to work out the details.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
+public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
+in machine readable form.
+
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
+public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
+Money should be paid to the:
+"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
+software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
+hart@pobox.com
+
+[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
+when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
+Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
+used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
+they hardware or software or any other related product without
+express permission.]
+
+*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*