lost all claim on the affections of my peo-[tion. You disbelieve the stories of the ple by succumbing to the Christian king Hebrews; yet you suffer the Hebrews and accepting a fief under his dominion, themselves, that ancient and kindred I find that the very crime of El Zagal is Arabian race, to be ground to the dust, fixed upon me by my unhappy subjects; condemned and tortured by your judges. that they deem he would not have yielded your informers, your soldiers, and your but for supineness. At the moment of subjects."

my delivery from my rival, I am received The base misers! they deserve their by my subjects, and, driven into this my fate," answered Boabdil, loftily. "Gold fortress of the Alhambra, dare not venture is their god and the market-place their to head my armies or to face my people; country; amid the tears and groans of nayet am I called weak and irresolute when tions, they sympathize only with the rise strength and courage are forbid me. And and fall of trade; and, the thieves of the as the water glides from yonder rock, universe! while their hand is against that hath no power to retain it, I see the every man's coffer, why wonder that they tide of empire welling from my hands." provoke the hand of every man against The young king spoke warmly and their throats? Worse than the tribe of bitterly; and, in the irritation of his Hanifa, who eat their god only in time of thoughts, strode, while he spoke, with famine; the race of Moisat would sell rapid and irregular strides along the the seven heavens for the dent on the chamber. Almamen marked his emotion back of the date stone."

misers in their own sacred land when

with an eye and lip of rigid composure. "Your laws leave them no ambition but "Light of the faithful," said he, when that of avarice," replied Almamen; " and, Boabdil had concluded, "the powers above as the plant will crook and distort its trunk never doom man to perpetual sorrow or to raise its head, through every obstacle, perpetual joy; the cloud and the sunshine to the sun, so the mind of man twists and are alike essential to the heaven of our perverts itself, if legitimate openings are destinies; and if thou hast suffered in thy denied it, to find its natural element in the youth, thou hast exhausted the calami- gale of power or the sunshine of esteem. ties of fate, and thy manhood will be glo- These Hebrews were not traffickers and rious and thy age screnc." Thou speakst as if the armies of they routed your ancestors, the Arab Ferdinand were not already around my armies of old, and gnawed the flesh from walls," said Boabdil, impatiently. their bones in famine rather than yield a weaker city than Grenada to a mightier force than the holyday lords of Spain. "Wise seer," returned the king, in a Let this pass. My lord, who rejects the tone half sarcastic and half solemn," we, belief in the agencies of the angels, doth the Mussulmans of Spain, are not the he still retain belief in the wisdom of morblind fanatics of the eastern world. On tal?"

"The armies of Sennacherib were as mighty," answered Almamen.

us have fallen the lights of philosophy and "Yes!" returned Boabdil, quickly; "for science; and if the more clearsighted of the one I know naught, of the other among us yet outwardly reverence the mine own senses can be the judge. Alforms and fables worshipped by the mul- mamen, my fiery kinsman, Muza, hath titude, it is from the wisdom of policy, not this evening been with me. He hath urthe folly of belief. Talk not to me, then, ged me to reject the fears against my of thine examples of the ancient and el-people that chain my panting spirit withder creeds; the agents of God for this in these walls; he hath urged me to gird world are now, at least, in men, not an-on yonder shield and cimeter, and to apgels; and if I wait till Ferdinand share pear in the Vivarambla at the head of the the destiny of Sennacherib, I wait only nobles of Grenada. My heart leaps high till the Standard of the Cross wave above at the thought! and, if I cannot live, at the Vermillion Towers."

"Yet," said Almamen, while my lord the king rejects the fanaticism of belief,

* The tribe of Hanifa worshipped a lump of dough. + Moisa, Moses.

A proverb used in the Koran, signifying the smaldoth he reject the fanaticism of persecu-lest possible trifle.

least I will die-a king !"

"Prove to me thy power," said Boab

"It is nobly spoken," said Almamen, dil, awed less by the word than by the 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 thinks, then, that I am doomed to perish in this struggie ?"

"As the hour shall be chosen, wilt thou fall or triumph."

"And that hour?"

"Is not yet come."

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: Boabdi! started and turned pale. "A fearful spot!"

"So is the Alhambra itself, great Boab

"Does thou read the hour in the stars?" dil, while Ferdinand is without the walls "Let Moorish sneers cultivate that fran- and Musa within the city." "Muza! Darest thou mistrust my bra

tic credulity; thy servant sees but in the

stars worlds mightier that this little earth, vest warrior?"

whose light would neither wane nor wink "What wise king will trust the idol of if earth itself were swept from the in- the king's army? Did Boabdil fall to finites of space." morrow by a chance javelin in the field, "Mysterious man!" said Boabdil; whom would the nobles and the warriors "whence, then, is thy power? whence thy place upon his throne? Doth it require knowledge of the future!" an enchanter's lore to whisper to thy heart Almamen approached the king, as he the answer in the name of Muza!" now stood by the open balcony. "Oh, wretched state! oh, miserable "Behold!" said he, pointing to the wa-king!" exclaimed Boabdil, in a tone of ters of the Darro; "yonder stream is of great anguish. "I never had a father; an element in which man cannot live or I have now no people: a little while, and breathe; above, in the thin and impal- I shall have no country. Am I never to pable air, our steps cannot find a footing, have a friend?"

the armies of all earth cannot build an "A friend! what king ever had?" reempire. And yet, by the exercise of a turned Almamen, dryly.

little art, the fishes and the birds, the in- "Away, man, away!" cried Boabdil, habitants of the air and the water, minis- as the impatient spirit of his rank and race ter to our most humble wants, the most shot dangerous fire from his eyes; your common of our enjoyments; so is it with cold and bloodless wisdoin freezes up all the true science of enchantment. Thinkst the veins of my manhood! Glory, conthou that, while the petty surface of the fidence, human sympathy, and feelingworld is crowded with living things, there your counsels annihilate them all. Leave is no life in the vast centre within the me! I would be alone.”

66

earth, and the immense ether that sur- We meet to-morrow at midnight, rounds it? As the fisherman snares his mighty Boabdil," said Almamen, with his prey, as the fowler entraps the bird, so, usual unmoved and passionless tones. by the art and genius of our human mind," May the king live for ever!" we may thrall and command the subtiler The king turned, but his monitor had beings of realms and elements which our already disappeared. He went as he material bodies cannot enter, our gross came, noiseless and sudden as a ghost.

senses cannot survey. This, then, is my lore. Of other worlds know I naught; 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;

CHAPTER III.

THE LOVERS.

but I can invoke and conjure up those WHEN Muza parted from Almamen, he whose eyes are more piercing, whose na- bent his steps towards the hill that rises tures are more gifted." opposite the ascent crowned with the

towers of the Alhambra, the sides and should war against our loves and our summit of which eminence were tenanted bridals? For worn equally on my heart by the luxurious population of the city. were the flower of thy sweet self, whether He selected the more private and secluded the mountain-top or the valley gave birth paths; and, half way up the hill, arrived to the odour and the bloom."

at last before a low wall of considerable "Alas!" answered Leila, weeping," the extent, which girded the gardens of some mystery thou complainest of is as dark wealthier inhabitant of the city. He to myself as thee. How often have I told looked long and anxiously round, all was thee that I know nothing of my birth or solitary; nor was the stillness broken, childish fortunes, save a dim memory of a save as an occasional breeze from the more distant and burning clime, where, snowy heights of the Sierra Nevada amid sands and wastes, springs the everrustled the fragrant leaves of the citron lasting cedar, and the camel grazes on and pomegranate, or as the silver tinkling stunted herbage withering in the fiery of waterfalls chimed melodiously within air? Then it seemed to me that I had the gardens. The Moor's heart beat high: a mother; fond eyes looked on me, and a moment more, and he had scaled the soft songs hushed me into sleep." wall, and found himself upon a green

"Thy mother's soul has passed into sward, variegated by the rich colours of mine," said the Moor, tenderly. many a sleeping flower, and shaded by Leila continued: "Borne hither, I pasgroves and alleys of luxuriant foliage and sed from childhood into youth within golden fruits. these walls. Slaves minister to my

It was not long before he stood beside slightest wish; and those who have seen a house that seemed of a construction an- both state and poverty, which I have not, terior to the Moorish dynasty. It was tell me that treasures and splendour that built over low cloisters, formed by heavy might glad a monarch are prodigalized and time-worn pillars, concealed, for the around me: but of ties and kindred know most part, by a profusion of roses and 1 little. My father a stern and silent creeping shrubs: the lattices above the man, visits me but rarely; sometimes cloisters opened upon large gilded balco- months pass, and I see him not; but I nies, the superaddition of Moriscan taste. feel he loves me; and, till I knew thee, In one only of the casements a lamp was Muza, my brightest hours were in listenvisible; the rest of the mansion was dark, ing to the footsteps and flying to the arms as if, save in that chamber, sleep kept of that solitary friend." watch over the inmates. It was to this "Know you not his name?" window that the Moor stole, and, after a "Nor I nor any one of the household, moment's pause he sung a Moorish song. save, perhaps, Ximen, the chief of the As he concluded the lattice softly open-slaves, an old and withered man, whose ed, and a female appeared on the balcony. very eye chills me into fear and silence." "Ah, Leila!" said the Moor, "I sec Strange!" said the Moor, musingly; thee, and I am blessed!" "yet why think you our love is discovered or can be thwarted?"

"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."

66

"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 "Holy prophet!" exclaimed Muza, pas- last upon Grenada. Learn,' he added, sionately, what do I hear? Why this in a softer voice, as he saw me tremble mystery? why cannot I learn thine origin, That permission were easier given to thy rank, thy parents? Think you, thee to wed the wild tiger than to mate beautiful Leila, that Grenada holds a with the loftiest noble of Morsica! Behouse lofty enough to disdain the alliance ware! He spoke and left me. Oh, Muof Muza Ben Abil Gazan? and oh!" he za!" she continued, passionately wringadded, sinking the haughty tones of his ing her hands, "my heart sinks within voice into ascents of the softest tender-me, and omen and doom rise dark before ness, "if not too high to scorn me, what my sight!"

"By my father's head, these obstacles lars, round which were twisted serpents but fire my love; and I would scale to of gold and enamel, with eyes to which thy possession though every step in the enormous emeralds gave a green and lifeladder were the corpses of a hundred like glare. Various scrolls and musical foes!" iustruments lay scattered upon marble ta Scarcely had the fiery and high-souled bles, and a solitary lamp of burnished sil Moor uttered his boast, than, from some ver cast a dim and subdued light around unseen hand amid the groves, a javelin the chamber. The effect of the whole, whirred past him, and; as the air it raised though splendid, was gloomy, strange, came sharp upon his cheek, half buried and oppressive, and rather suited either to its quivering shaft in the trunk of a tree the cold climate of the Norman, or to the behind him. thick and cavelike architecture which of "Fly, fly, and save thyself! On God, old protected the inhabitants of Thebes protect him!" cried Leila, and she van- and Memphis from the rays of the Afri ished within the chamber. can sun, than the transparent heaven and The Moor did not wait the result of a light pavilions of the graceulf orientals of deadlier aim he turned, yet, in the in- Grenada.

the ambuscades of Moorish warfare, he

stinct of his fierce nature, not from, but Leila stood within this chamber, pale and against his foe; the drawn scimetar in breathless, with her lips apart, her hands his hand, the half-suppressed cry of clasped, her very soul in her ears; nor wrath trembling on his lips, he sprang was it possible to conceive a more perfect forward in the direction whence the jave- ideal of some delicate and brilliant peri, lin had sped. With eyes accustomed to captured in the palace of a hostile and searched eagerly, yet warily, through the lightest shape consistent with the roundgloomy genius. Her form was of the dark and sighing foliage. No sign of life ness of womanly beauty; and there was met his gaze; and at length grimly and reluctantly, he retraced his steps and left something in it of that elastic and fawnthe demesnes; but, just as he had cleared body in his dreams of a being more aerial like grace which a sculptor seeks to imthe wall a voice, low, but sharp and shrill, than those of earth. Her luxuriant hair came from the gardens. "Thou art spared," it said, "but, haply hue redeemed it from that heaviness of was dark indeed, but a purple and glossy

for a more miserable doom!"

CHAPTER IV.

THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

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 THE chamber into which Leila retreat- charm of that exquisite countenance was ed bore out the character she had given in an expression of softness, and purity, of the interior of her home. The fashion and intellectual sentiment that seldom acof its ornament and decoration was for- companies that cast of loveliness, and eign to that adopted by the Moors of was wholly foreign to the voluptuous and Grenada. It had a more massive, and, dreamy languor of Moorish maidens; if we may use the term, Egptian gor- Leila had been educated, and the statue, geousness. The walls were covered with had received a soul.

the stuffs of the East, stiff with gold, em- After a few minutes of intense suspense, broidered upon ground of the deepest she again stole to the lattice, gently un purple; strange characters, apparently in closed it, and looked forth. Far, through some foreign tongue, were wrought in the an opening amid the trees, she descried tessalated cornices and on the heavy ceil- for a single moment, the crect and stateing, which was supported by square pil-ly figure of her lover darkening the moon

shine on the sward, as now, leaving his paroxysm was brief, and scarce could she fruitless search, he turned his lingering shudder at its intensity ere it had subsigaze towards the lattice of his beloved; ded into calm. the thick and interlacing foliage quickly

66

Enough of these thoughts, which hid him from her eyes; but Leila had scen thou, a woman and a child, are not formenough; she turned within, and said, as ed to behold. Leila, thou hast been nur grateful tears trickeled down her cheeks, tured with tenderness and schooled with and she sank upon her knees on the piled care. Harsh and unloving may I have cushions of the chamber, "God of my seemed to thee, but I would have shed fathers! I bless thee-he is safe!" the best drops of my heart to save thy "And yet," she added, as a painful young years from a single pang. Nay, thought crossed her, "how may I pray listen to me silently. That thou mightst for him we kneel not to the same divini- one day be worthy of thy race, and that ty; and I have been taught to loathe and thine hours might not pass in indolent shudder at his creed! Alas! how will and weary lasstiude, thou hast been this end? Fatal was the hour when he taught the lessons of a knowledge rarely first beheld me in yonder gardens; more given to thy sex. Not thine the lascivious fatal still the hour in which he crossed the arts of the Moorish maidens; not thine barrier, and told Leila that she was be- their harlot songs and their dances of loved by the hero whose arm was the lewd delight; thy delicate limbs were but shelter, whose name is the blessing, of taught the attitude that Natnre dedicates Grenada. Ah, me! Ah, me!" to the worship of a God, and the music of

The young maiden covered her face thy voice was tuned to the songs of thy with her hands, and sunk into a passionate fallen country, sad with the memory of revery, broken only by their sobs. Some her wrongs, animated with the names of ime had passed in this undisturbed indul- her heroes, holy with the solemnity of gence of her grief, when the arras was her prayers. These scrolls and the les gently put aside, and a man of remarkable sons of our seers have imparted to thee garb and mien advanced into the chamber such of our science and our history as pausing as he beheld her dejected attitude may fit thy mind to aspire and thy heart and gazing on her with a look in which to feel for a sacred cause, Thou listen. pity and tenderness seemed to struggle est to me Lelia ?" against habitual severity and sternness. Perplexed and wondering, for never "Lelia!" said the intruder. before had her father addressed her in Lelia started, and a deep blsuh suffused such a strain, the maiden answered with her countenance; she dashed the tears an earnestness of manner that seemed to from her eyes, and came forward with a content the questioner; and he resumed, vain attempt to smile. with an altered, hollow, solemn voice: "Then curse the persecutors! Daugh

"My father, welcome!" The stranger seated himself on the ter of the great Hebrew race, arise and cushions and motioned Leila to his side. curse the Moorish taskmaster and spoil.

These tears are fresh upon thy cheek," er!" said he gravely; "they are the witness As he spoke the adjurer himself rose, of thy race! our daughters are born to lifting his right hand on high, while his weep, and our sons to groan; ashes are left touched the shoulder of the maiden, on the head of the mighty and the Foun- But she, after gazing a moment in wild tains of the Beautiful run with gall! Oh, and terrified amazement upon his face, that we could but struggle-that we fell cowering at his knees; and, clasping could but dare-that we could raise up them imploringly exclaimed, in scarce ar our heads, and unite against the bondage ticulate murmurs,

of the evil-doer! It may not be-but one "Oh, spare me! spare me!" man shall avenge a nation!"

The Hebrew, for such he was, survey

The dark face of Leila's father, well ed her, as she thus quailed at his feet, fitted to express powerful emotion, became with a look of ra and scorn: his hand. terrible in its wrath and passion; his brow wandered to his pou. rd, he half unsheath. and lip worked convulsively; but the ed it, thrust it back with a muttered YOL.3-14-2