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.
