Leila or, the Siege of Granada Part 7

"May the king live for ever!" said Amine, timidly; "his armies have gone forth to conquer."

"But without their king," replied Boabdil, bitterly, "and headed by a traitor and a foe. I am meshed in the nets of an inextricable fate!"

"Oh!" said the slave, with sudden energy, as, clasping her hands, she rose from her couch,--"oh, my lord, would that these humble lips dared utter other words than those of love!"

"And what wise counsel would they give me?" asked Boabdil with a faint smile. "Speak on."

"I will obey thee, then, even if it displease," cried Amine; and she rose, her cheek glowing, her eyes spark ling, her beautiful form dilated. "I am a daughter of Granada; I am the beloved of a king; I will be true to my birth and to my fortunes. Boabdil el Chico, the last of a line of heroes, shake off these gloomy fantasies--these doubts and dreams that smother the fire of a great nature and a kingly soul!

Awake--arise--rob Granada of her Muza--be thyself her Muza! Trustest thou to magic and to spells? then grave them on they breastplate, write them on thy sword, and live no longer the Dreamer of the Alhambra; become the saviour of thy people!"

Boabdil turned, and gazed on the inspired and beautiful form before him with mingled emotions of surprise and shame. "Out of the mouth of woman cometh my rebuke!" said he sadly. "It is well!"

"Pardon me, pardon me!" said the slave, falling humbly at his knees; "but blame me not that I would have thee worthy of thyself. Wert thou not happier, was not thy heart more light and thy hope more strong when, at the head of thine armies, thine own cimiter slew thine own foes, and the terror of the Hero-king spread, in flame and slaughter, from the mountains to the seas. Boabdil! dear as thou art to me-equally as I would have loved thee hadst thou been born a lowly fisherman of the Darro, since thou art a king, I would have thee die a king; even if my own heart broke as I armed thee for thy latest battle!"

"Thou knowest not what thou sayest, Amine," said Boabdil, "nor canst thou tell what spirits that are not of earth dictate to the actions and watch over the destinies, of the rulers of nations. If I delay, if I linger, it is not from terror, but from wisdom. The cloud must gather on, dark and slow, ere the moment for the thunderbolt arrives."

"On thine own house will the thunderbolt fall, since over thine own house thou sufferest the cloud to gather," said a calm and stern voice.

Boabdil started; and in the chamber stood a third person, in the shape of a woman, past middle age, and of commanding port and stature. Upon her long-descending robes of embroidered purple were thickly woven jewels of royal price, and her dark hair, slightly tinged with grey, parted over a majestic brow while a small diadem surmounted the folds of the turban.

"My mother!" said Boabdil, with some haughty reserve in his tone; "your presence is unexpected."

"Ay," answered Ayxa la Horra, for it was indeed that celebrated, and haughty, and high-souled queen, "and unwelcome; so is ever that of your true friends. But not thus unwelcome was the presence of your mother, when her brain and her hand delivered you from the dungeon in which your stern father had cast your youth, and the dagger and the bowl seemed the only keys that would unlock the cell."

"And better hadst thou left the ill-omened son that thy womb conceived, to die thus in youth, honoured and lamented, than to live to manhood, wrestling against an evil star and a relentless fate."

"Son," said the queen, gazing upon him with lofty and half disdainful compa.s.sion, "men's conduct shapes out their own fortunes, and the unlucky are never the valiant and the wise."

"Madam," said Boabdil, colouring with pa.s.sion, "I am still a king, nor will I be thus bearded--withdraw!"

Ere the queen could reply, a eunuch entered, and whispered Boabdil.

"Ha!" said he, joyfully, stamping his foot, "comes he then to brave the lion in his den? Let the rebel look to it. Is he alone?"

"Alone, great king."

"Bid my guards wait without; let the slightest signal summon them.

Amine, retire! Madam--"

"Son!" interrupted Ayxa la Horra in visible agitation, "do I guess aright? is the brave Muza--the sole bulwark and hope of Granada--whom unjustly thou wouldst last night have placed in chains--(chains! Great Prophet! is it thus a king should reward his heroes)--is, I say, Muza here? and wilt thou make him the victim of his own generous trust?"

"Retire, woman?" said Boabdil, sullenly.

"I will not, save by force! I resisted a fiercer soul than thine when I saved thee from thy father."

"Remain, then, if thou wilt, and learn how kings can punish traitors.

Mesnour, admit the hero of Granada." Amine had vanished. Boabdil seated himself on the cushions his face calm but pale. The queen stood erect at a little distance, her arms folded on her breast, and her aspect knit and resolute. In a few moments Muza entered alone. He approached the king with the profound salutation of oriental obeisance; and then stood before him with downcast eyes, in an att.i.tude from which respect could not divorce a natural dignity and pride of mien.

"Prince," said Boabdil, after a moment's pause, "yestermorn, when I sent for thee thou didst brave my orders. Even in mine own Alhambra thy minions broke out in mutiny; they surrounded the fortress in which thou wert to wait my pleasure; they intercepted, they insulted, they drove back my guards; they stormed the towers protected by the banner of thy king. The governor, a coward or a traitor, rendered thee to the rebellious crowd. Was this all? No, by the Prophet! Thou, by right my captive, didst leave thy prison but to head mine armies. And this day, the traitor subject--the secret foe--was the leader of a people who defy a king. This night thou comest to me unsought. Thou feelest secure from my just wrath, even in my palace. Thine insolence blinds and betrays thee. Man, thou art in my power! Ho, there!"

As the king spoke, he rose; and, presently, the arcades at the back of the pavilion were darkened by long lines of the Ethiopian guard, each of height which, beside the slight Moorish race, appeared gigantic; stolid and pa.s.sionless machines, to execute, without thought, the bloodiest or the slightest caprice of despotism. There they stood; their silver breastplates and long earrings contrasting their dusky skins; and bearing, over their shoulders, immense clubs studded with brazen nails.

A little advanced from the rest, stood the captain, with the fatal bowstring hanging carelessly on his arm, and his eyes intent to catch the slightest gesture of the king. "Behold!" said Boabdil to his prisoner.

"I do; and am prepared for what I have foreseen." The queen grew pale, but continued silent.

Muza resumed--

"Lord of the faithful!" said he, "if yestermorn I had acted otherwise, it would have been to the ruin of thy throne and our common race. The fierce Zegris suspected and learned my capture. They summoned the troops they delivered me, it is true. At that time had I reasoned with them, it would have been as drops upon a flame. They were bent on besieging thy palace, perhaps upon demanding thy abdication. I could not stifle their fury, but I could direct it. In the moment of pa.s.sion, I led them from rebellion against our common king to victory against our common foe.

That duty done, I come unscathed from the sword of the Christian to bare my neck to the bowstring of my friend. Alone, untracked, unsuspected, I have entered thy palace to prove to the sovereign of Granada, that the defendant of his throne is not a rebel to his will. Now summon the guards--I have done."

"Muza!" said Boabdil, in a softened voice, while he shaded his face with his hand, "we played together as children, and I have loved thee well: my kingdom even now, perchance, is pa.s.sing from me, but I could almost be reconciled to that loss, if I thought thy loyalty had not left me."

"Dost thou, in truth, suspect the faith of Muza Ben Abil Gazan?" said the Moorish prince, in a tone of surprise and sorrow. "Unhappy king! I deemed that my services, and not my defection, made my crime."

"Why do my people hate me? why do my armies menace?" said Boabdil, evasively; "why should a subject possess that allegiance which a king cannot obtain?"

"Because," replied Muza, boldly, "the king has delegated to a subject the command he should himself a.s.sume. Oh, Boabdil!" he continued, pa.s.sionately--"friend of my boyhood, ere the evil days came upon us,--gladly would I sink to rest beneath the dark waves of yonder river, if thy arm and brain would fill up my place amongst the warriors of Granada. And think not I say this only from our boyish love; think not I have placed my life in thy hands only from that servile loyalty to a single man, which the false chivalry of Christendom imposes as a sacred creed upon its knights and n.o.bles. But I speak and act but from one principle--to save the religion of, my father and the land of my birth: for this I have risked my life against the foe; for this I surrender my life to the sovereign of my country. Granada may yet survive, if monarch and people unite together. Granada is lost for ever, if her children, at this fatal hour, are divided against themselves. If, then, I, O Boabdil!

am the true obstacle to thy league with thine own subjects, give me at once to the bowstring, and my sole prayer shall be for the last remnant of the Moorish name, and the last monarch of the Moorish dynasty."

"My son, my son! art thou convinced at last?" cried the queen, struggling with her tears; for she was one who wept easily at heroic sentiments, but never at the softer sorrows, or from the more womanly emotions.

Boabdil lifted his head with a vain and momentary attempt at pride; his eye glanced from his mother to his friend, and his better feelings gushed upon him with irresistible force; he threw himself into Muza's arms.

"Forgive me," he said, in broken accents, "forgive me! How could I have wronged thee thus? Yes," he continued, as he started from the n.o.ble breast on which for a moment he indulged no ungenerous weakness,--"yes, prince, your example shames, but it fires me. Granada henceforth shall have two chieftains; and if I be jealous of thee, it shall be from an emulation thou canst not blame. Guards, retire. Mesnour! ho, Mesnour!

Proclaim at daybreak that I myself will review the troops in the Vivarrambla. Yet"--and, as he spoke his voice faltered, and his brow became overcast, "yet stay, seek me thyself at daybreak, and I will give thee my commands."

"Oh, my son! why hesitate?" cried the queen, "why waver? Prosecute thine own kingly designs, and--"

"Hush, madam," said Boabdil, regaining his customary cold composure; "and since you are now satisfied with your son, leave me alone with Muza."

The queen sighed heavily; but there was something in the calm of Boabdil which chilled and awed her more than his bursts of pa.s.sion. She drew her veil around her, and pa.s.sed slowly and reluctantly from the chamber.

"Muza," said Boabdil, when alone with the prince, and fixing his large and thoughtful eyes upon the dark orbs of his companion,--"when, in our younger days, we conversed together, do you remember how often that converse turned upon those solemn and mysterious themes to which the sages of our ancestral land directed their deepest lore; the enigmas of the stars--the science of fate--the wild searches into the clouded future, which hides the destines of nations and of men? Thou rememberest, Muza, that to such studies mine own vicissitudes and sorrows, even in childhood--the strange fortunes which gave me in my cradle the epithet of El Zogoybi--the ominous predictions of santons and astrologers as to the trials of my earthly fate,--all contributed to incline my soul. Thou didst not despise those earnest musings, nor our ancestral lore, though, unlike me, ever more inclined to action than to contemplation, that which thou mightest believe had little influence upon what thou didst design. With me it hath been otherwise; every event of life hath conspired to feed my early prepossessions; and, in this awful crisis of my fate, I have placed myself and my throne rather under the guardianship of spirits than of men. This alone has reconciled me to inaction--to the torpor of the Alhambra--to the mutinies of my people.

I have smiled, when foes surround and friends deserted me, secure of the aid at last--if I bided but the fortunate hour--of the charms of protecting spirits, and the swords of the invisible creation. Thou wonderest what this should lead to. Listen! Two nights since (and the king shuddered) I was with the dead! My father appeared before me--not as I knew him in life--gaunt and terrible, full of the vigour of health, and the strength of kingly empire, and of fierce pa.s.sion--but wan, calm, shadowy. From lips on which Azrael had set his livid seal, he bade me beware of thee!"

The king ceased suddenly; and sought to read on the face of Muza the effect his words produced. But the proud and swarthy features of the Moor evinced no pang of conscience; a slight smile of pity might have crossed his lip for a moment, but it vanished ere the king could detect it. Boabdil continued:

"Under the influence of this warning, I issued the order for thy arrest.

Let this pa.s.s--I resume my tale. I attempted to throw myself at the spectre's feet--it glided from me, motionless and impalpable. I asked the Dead One if he forgave his unhappy son the sin of rebellion alas!

too well requited even upon earth. And the voice again came forth, and bade me keep the crown that I had gained, as the sole atonement for the past. Then again I asked, whether the hour for action had arrived! and the spectre, while it faded gradually into air, answered, 'No!' 'Oh!'

I exclaimed, 'ere thou leavest me, be one sign accorded me, that I have not dreamt this vision; and give me, I pray thee, note and warning, when the evil star of Boabdil shall withhold its influence, and he may strike, without resistance from the Powers above, for his glory and his throne.' 'The sign and the warning are bequeathed thee,' answered the ghostly image. It vanished,--thick darkness fell around; and, when once more the light of the lamps we bore became visible, behold there stood before me a skeleton, in the regal robe of the kings of Granada, and on its grisly head was the imperial diadem. With one hand raised, it pointed to the opposite wall, wherein burned, like an orb of gloomy fire, a broad dial-plate, on which were graven these words, BEWARE--FEAR NOT--ARM! The finger of the dial moved rapidly round, and rested at the word beware. From that hour to the one in which I last beheld it, it hath not moved. Muza, the tale is done; wilt thou visit with me this enchanted chamber, and see if the hour be come?"

"Commander of the faithful," said Muza, "the story is dread and awful.

But pardon thy friend--wert thou alone, or was the santon Almamen thy companion?"

"Why the question?" said Boabdil, evasively, and slightly colouring.