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