CHAPTER III.
THE HOUR AND THE MAN
It was on the third morning after the King of Granada, reconciled to his
people, had reviewed his gallant army in the Vivarrambla; and Boabdil,
surrounded by his chiefs and nobles, was planning a deliberate and
decisive battle, by assault on the Christian camp,--when a scout suddenly
arrived, breathless, at the gates of the palace, to communicate the
unlooked-for and welcome intelligence that Ferdinand had in the night
broken up his camp, and marched across the mountains towards Cordova. In
fact, the outbreak of formidable conspiracies had suddenly rendered the
appearance of Ferdinand necessary elsewhere; and, his intrigues with
Almamen frustrated, he despaired of a very speedy conquest of the city.
The Spanish king resolved, therefore, after completing the devastation of
the Vega, to defer the formal and prolonged siege, which could alone
place Granada within his power, until his attention was no longer
distracted to other foes, and until, it must be added, he had replenished
an exhausted treasury. He had formed, with Torquemada, a vast and wide
scheme of persecution, not only against Jews, but against Christians
whose fathers had been of that race, and who were suspected of relapsing
into Judaical practices. The two schemers of this grand design were
actuated by different motives; the one wished to exterminate the crime,
the other to sell forgiveness for it. And Torquemada connived at the
griping avarice of the king, because it served to give to himself, and to
the infant Inquisition, a power and authority which the Dominican foresaw
would be soon greater even than those of royalty itself, and which, he
imagined, by scourging earth, would redound to the interests of Heaven.
The strange disappearance of Almamen, which was distorted and
exaggerated, by the credulity of the Spaniards, into an event of the most
terrific character, served to complete the chain of evidence against the
wealthy Jews, and Jew-descended Spaniards, of Andalusia; and while, in
imagination, the king already clutched the gold of their redemption here,
the Dominican kindled the flame that was to light them to punishment
hereafter.
Boabdil and his chiefs received the intelligence of the Spanish retreat
with a doubt which soon yielded to the most triumphant delight. Boabdil
at once resumed all the energy for which, though but by fits and starts,
his earlier youth had been remarkable.
"Alla Achbar! God is great!" cried he; "we will not remain here till it
suit the foe to confine the eagle again to his eyrie. They have left us
--we will burst on them. Summon our alfaquis, we will proclaim a holy
war! The sovereign of the last possessions of the Moors is in the field.
Not a town that contains a Moslem but shall receive our summons, and we
will gather round our standard all the children of our faith!"
"May the king live for ever!" cried the council, with one voice.
"Lose not a moment," resumed Boabdil--"on to the Vivarrambla, marshal the
troops--Muza heads the cavalry; myself our foot. Ere the sun's shadow
reach yonder forest, our army shall be on its march."
The warriors, hastily and in joy, left the palace; and when he was alone,
Boabdil again relapsed into his wonted irresolution. After striding to
and fro for some minutes in anxious thought, he abruptly quitted the hall
of council, and passed in to the more private chambers of the palace,
till he came to a door strongly guarded by plates of iron. It yielded
easily, however, to a small key which he carried in his girdle; and
Boabdil stood in a small circular room, apparently without other door or
outlet; but, after looking cautiously round, the king touched a secret
spring in the wall, which, giving way, discovered a niche, in which stood
a small lamp, burning with the purest naphtha, and a scroll of yellow
parchment covered with strange letters and hieroglyphics. He thrust the
scroll in his bosom, took the lamp in his hand, and pressing another
spring within the niche, the wall receded, and showed a narrow and
winding staircase. The king reclosed the entrance, and descended: the
stairs led, at last, into clamp and rough passages; and the murmur of
waters, that reached his ear through the thick walls, indicated the
subterranean nature of the soil through which they were hewn. The lamp
burned clear and steady through the darkness of the place; and Boabdil
proceeded with such impatient rapidity, that the distance (in reality,
considerable) which he traversed, before he arrived at his destined
bourne, was quickly measured. He came at last into a wide cavern,
guarded by doors concealed and secret as those which had screened the
entrance from the upper air. He was in one of the many vaults which made
the mighty cemetery of the monarchs of Granada; and before him stood the
robed and crowned skeleton, and before him glowed the magic dial-plate of
which he had spoken in his interview with Muza.
"Oh, dread and awful image!" cried the king, throwing himself on his
knees before the skeleton,--"shadow of what was once a king, wise in
council, and terrible in war, if in those hollow bones yet lurks the
impalpable and unseen spirit, hear thy repentant son. Forgive, while it
is yet time, the rebellion of his fiery youth, and suffer thy daring soul
to animate the doubt and weakness of his own. I go forth to battle,
waiting not the signal thou didst ordain. Let not the penance for a
rashness, to which fate urges me on, attach to my country, but to me.
And if I perish in the field, may my evil destinies be buried with me,
and a worthier monarch redeem my errors and preserve Granada!"
As the king raised his looks, the unrelaxed grin of the grim dead, made
yet more hideous by the mockery of the diadem and the royal robe, froze
back to ice the passion and sorrow at his heart. He shuddered, and rose
with a deep sigh; when, as his eyes mechanically followed the lifted arm
of the skeleton, he beheld, with mingled delight and awe, the hitherto
motionless finger of the dial-plate pass slowly on, and rest at the word
so long and so impatiently desired. "ARM!" cried the king; "do I read
aright?--are my prayers heard?" A low and deep sound, like that of
subterranean thunder, boomed through the chamber; and in the same instant
the wall opened, and the king beheld the long-expected figure of Almamen,
the magician. But no longer was that stately form clad in the loose and
peaceful garb of the Eastern santon. Complete armour cased his broad
chest and sinewy limbs; his head alone was bare, and his prominent and
impressive features were lighted, not with mystical enthusiasm, but with
warlike energy. In his right hand, he carried a drawn sword--his left
supported the staff of a snow-white and dazzling banner.
So sudden was the apparition, and so excited the mind of the king, that
the sight of a supernatural being could scarcely have impressed him with
more amaze and awe.
"King of Granada," said Almamen, "the hour hath come at last; go forth
and conquer! With the Christian monarch, there is no hope of peace or
compact. At thy request I sought him, but my spells alone preserved the
life of thy herald. Rejoice! for thine evil destinies have rolled away
from thy spirit, like a cloud from the glory of the sun. The genii of
the East have woven this banner from the rays of benignant stars. It
shall beam before thee in the front of battle--it shall rise over the
rivers of Christian blood. As the moon sways the bosom of the tides,
it shall sway and direct the surges and the course of war!"
"Man of mystery! thou hast given me a new life."
"And, fighting by thy side," resumed Almamen, "I will assist to carve out
for thee, from the ruins of Arragon and Castile, the grandeur of a new
throne. Arm, monarch of Granada!--arm! I hear the neigh of thy charger,
in the midst of the mailed thousands! Arm!"
