Leila or, the Siege of Granada, Book II. by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (best books to read for knowledge .TXT) 📗

reward his heroes)—is, I say, Muza here? and wilt thou make him the victim of his own generous trust?"

"Retire, woman?" said Boabdil, sullenly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Muza resumed—

"Lord of the faithful!" said he, "if yestermorn I had acted otherwise, it would have been to the ruin of thy throne and our common race. The fierce Zegris suspected and learned my capture. They summoned the troops they delivered me, it is true. At that time had I reasoned with them, it would have been as drops upon a flame. They were bent on besieging thy palace, perhaps upon demanding thy abdication. I could not stifle their fury, but I could direct it. In the moment of passion, I led them from rebellion against our common king to victory against our common foe. That duty done, I come unscathed from the sword of the Christian to bare my neck to the bowstring of my friend. Alone, untracked, unsuspected, I have entered thy palace to prove to the sovereign of Granada, that the defendant of his throne is not a rebel to his will. Now summon the guards—I have done."

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

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

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

"Because," replied Muza, boldly, "the king has delegated to a subject the command he should himself assume. Oh, Boabdil!" he continued, passionately—"friend of my boyhood, ere the evil days came upon us,— gladly would I sink to rest beneath the dark waves of yonder river, if thy arm and brain would fill up my place amongst the warriors of Granada. And think not I say this only from our boyish love; think not I have placed my life in thy hands only from that servile loyalty to a single man, which the false chivalry of Christendom imposes as a sacred creed upon its knights and nobles. But I speak and act but from one principle —to save the religion of, my father and the land of my birth: for this I have risked my life against the foe; for this I surrender my life to the sovereign of my country. Granada may yet survive, if monarch and people unite together. Granada is lost for ever, if her children, at this fatal hour, are divided against themselves. If, then, I, O Boabdil! am the true obstacle to thy league with thine own subjects, give me at once to the bowstring, and my sole prayer shall be for the last remnant of the Moorish name, and the last monarch of the Moorish dynasty."

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

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

"Forgive me," he said, in broken accents, "forgive me! How could I have wronged thee thus? Yes," he continued, as he started from the noble breast on which for a moment he indulged no ungenerous weakness,—"yes, prince, your example shames, but it fires me. Granada henceforth shall have two chieftains; and if I be jealous of thee, it shall be from an emulation thou canst not blame. Guards, retire. Mesnour! ho, Mesnour! Proclaim at daybreak that I myself will review the troops in the Vivarrambla. Yet"—and, as he spoke his voice faltered, and his brow became overcast, "yet stay, seek me thyself at daybreak, and I will give thee my commands."

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

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

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

"Muza," said Boabdil, when alone with the prince, and fixing his large and thoughtful eyes upon the dark orbs of his companion,—"when, in our younger days, we conversed together, do you remember how often that converse turned upon those solemn and mysterious themes to which the sages of our ancestral land directed their deepest lore; the enigmas of the stars—the science of fate—the wild searches into the clouded future, which hides the destines of nations and of men? Thou rememberest, Muza, that to such studies mine own vicissitudes and sorrows, even in childhood—the strange fortunes which gave me in my cradle the epithet of El Zogoybi—the ominous predictions of santons and astrologers as to the trials of my earthly fate,—all contributed to incline my soul. Thou didst not despise those earnest musings, nor our ancestral lore, though, unlike me, ever more inclined to action than to contemplation, that which thou mightest believe had little influence upon what thou didst design. With me it hath been otherwise; every event of life hath conspired to feed my early prepossessions; and, in this awful crisis of my fate, I have placed myself and my throne rather under the guardianship of spirits than of men. This alone has reconciled me to inaction—to the torpor of the Alhambra—to the mutinies of my people. I have smiled, when foes surround and friends deserted me, secure of the aid at last—if I bided but the fortunate hour—of the charms of protecting spirits, and the swords of the invisible creation. Thou wonderest what this should lead to. Listen! Two nights since (and the king shuddered) I was with the dead! My father appeared before me—not as I knew him in life—gaunt and terrible, full of the vigour of health, and the strength of kingly empire, and of fierce passion—but wan, calm, shadowy. From lips on which Azrael had set his livid seal, he bade me beware of thee!"

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

"Under the influence of this warning, I issued the order for thy arrest. Let this pass—I resume my tale. I attempted to throw myself at the spectre's feet—it glided from me, motionless and impalpable. I asked the Dead One if he forgave his unhappy son the sin of rebellion alas! too well requited even upon earth. And the voice again came forth, and bade me keep the crown that I had gained, as the sole atonement for the past. Then again I asked, whether the hour for action had arrived! and the spectre, while it faded gradually into air, answered, 'No!' 'Oh!' I exclaimed, 'ere thou leavest me, be one sign accorded me, that I have not dreamt this vision; and give me, I pray thee, note and warning, when the evil star of Boabdil shall withhold its influence, and he may strike, without resistance from the Powers above, for his glory and his throne.' 'The sign and the warning are bequeathed thee,' answered the ghostly image. It vanished,—thick darkness fell around; and, when once more the light of the lamps we bore became visible, behold there stood before me a skeleton, in the regal robe of the kings of Granada, and on its grisly head was the imperial diadem. With one hand raised, it pointed to the opposite wall, wherein burned, like an orb of gloomy fire, a broad dial- plate, on which were graven these words, BEWARE—FEAR NOT—ARM! The finger of the dial moved rapidly round, and rested at the word beware. From that hour to the one in which I last beheld it, it hath not moved. Muza, the tale is done; wilt thou visit with me this enchanted chamber, and see if the hour be come?"

"Commander of the faithful," said Muza, "the story is dread and awful. But pardon thy friend—wert thou alone, or was the santon Almamen thy companion?"

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

"I fear his truth," answered Muza; "the Christian king conquers more foes by craft than force; and his spies are more deadly than his warriors. Wherefore this caution against me, but (pardon me) for thine own undoing? Were I a traitor, could Ferdinand himself have endangered thy crown so imminently as the revenge of the leader of thine own armies? Why, too, this desire to keep thee inactive? For the brave every hour hath its chances; but, for us, every hour increases our peril. If we seize not the present time,—our supplies are cut off,—and famine is a foe all our valour cannot resist. This dervise—who is he? a stranger, not of our race and blood. But this morning I found him without the walls, not far from the Spaniard's camp."

"Ha!" cried the king, quickly, "and what said he?"

"Little, but in hints; sheltering himself, by loose hints, under thy name."

"He! what dared he own?—Muza, what were those hints?"

The Moor here recounted the interview with Almamen, his detention, his inactivity in the battle, and his subsequent capture by the Spaniards. The king listened attentively, and regained his composure.

"It is a strange and awful man," said he after a pause. "Guards and chains will