Leila or, the Siege of Granada Part 20

And then, perhaps, had the Moors pa.s.sed 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 compa.s.sion 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 mult.i.tude; 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 succ.u.mb 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 a.s.sure 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 G.o.d of Almamen!"

A shudder ran through that mighty mult.i.tude: 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 pa.s.sed scathless through the crowd; he might have borne to other climes his burning pa.s.sions 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 mult.i.tude rushed over the stern fanatic; six cimiters pa.s.sed 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 pa.s.sions 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 antic.i.p.ating 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 ma.s.sive ingots and glittering gems; in the l.u.s.t 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 cas.e.m.e.nt. 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 princ.i.p.al 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, pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sumed 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 compa.s.sionate admiration ran through that a.s.sembly 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 G.o.d!"

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 compa.s.sionate 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 embarra.s.sment 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 princ.i.p.ality beyond the Alpuxarras. As the trees s.n.a.t.c.hed 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.