Part 19 (2/2)

”No chance of that,” muttered Ximen; ”he will return no more to Granada.

The vulture and the worm have divided his carca.s.s between them ere this; and (he added inly with a hideous smile) his house and his gold have fallen into the hands of old childless Ximen.”

”This is a strange and fearful vault,” said Isaac, quaffing a large goblet of the hot wine of the Vega; ”here might the Witch of Endor have raised the dead. Yon door--whither doth it lead?”

”Through pa.s.sages none that I know of, save my master, hath trodden,”

answered Ximen. ”I have heard that they reach even to the Alhambra.

Come, worthy Elias! thy form trembles with the cold: take this wine.”

”Hist!” said Elias, shaking from limb to limb; ”our pursuers are upon us--I hear a step!”

As he spoke, the door to which Isaac had pointed slowly opened and Almamen entered the vault.

Had, indeed, a new Witch of Endor conjured up the dead, the apparition would not more have startled and appalled that goodly trio. Elias, griping his knife, retreated to the farthest end of the vault. Isaac dropped the goblet he was about to drain, and fell upon his knees.

Ximen, alone, growing, if possible, a shade more ghastly--retained something of self-possession, as he muttered to himself--”He lives! and his gold is not mine! Curse him!”

Seemingly unconscious of the strange guests his sanctuary shrouded, Almamen stalked on, like a man walking in his sleep.

Ximen roused himself--softly unbarred the door which admitted to the upper apartments, and motioned to his comrades to avail themselves of the opening, but as Isaac--the first to accept the hint--crept across, Almamen fixed upon him his terrible eye, and, appearing suddenly to awake to consciousness, shouted out, ”Thou miscreant, Ximen! whom hast thou admitted to the secrets of thy lord? Close the door--these men must die!”

”Mighty master!” said Ximen, calmly, ”is thy servant to blame that he believed the rumour that declared thy death? These men are of our holy faith, whom I have s.n.a.t.c.hed from the violence of the sacrilegious and maddened mob. No spot but this seemed safe from the popular frenzy.”

”Are ye Jews?” said Almamen. ”Ah, yes! I know ye now--things of the market-place and bazaar'. Oh, ye are Jews, indeed! Go, go! Leave me!”

Waiting no further licence, the three vanished; but, ere he quitted the vault, Elias turned back his scowling countenance on Almamen (who had sunk again into an absorbed meditation) with a glance of vindictive ire--Almamen was alone.

In less than a quarter of an hour Ximen returned to seek his master; but the place was again deserted.

It was midnight in the streets of Granada--midnight, but not repose. The mult.i.tude, roused into one of their paroyxsms of wrath and sorrow, by the reflection that the morrow was indeed the day of their subjection to the Christian foe, poured forth through the streets to the number of twenty thousand. It was a wild and stormy night; those formidable gusts of wind, which sometimes sweep in sudden winter from the snows of the Sierra Nevada, howled through the tossing groves, and along the winding streets. But the tempest seemed to heighten, as if by the sympathy of the elements, the popular storm and whirlwind. Brandis.h.i.+ng arms and torches, and gaunt with hunger, the dark forms of the frantic Moors seemed like ghouls or spectres, rather than mortal men; as, apparently without an object, save that of venting their own disquietude, or exciting the fears of earth, they swept through the desolate city.

In the broad s.p.a.ce of the Vivarrambla the crowd halted, irresolute in all else, but resolved at least that something for Granada should yet be done. They were for the most armed in their Moorish fas.h.i.+on; but they were wholly without leaders: not a n.o.ble, a magistrate, an officer, would have dreamed of the hopeless enterprise of violating the truce with Ferdinand. It was a mere popular tumult--the madness of a mob;--but not the less formidable, for it was an Eastern mob, and a mob with sword and shaft, with buckler and mail--the mob by which oriental empires have been built and overthrown! There, in the splendid s.p.a.ce that had witnessed the games and tournaments of that Arab and African chivalry--there, where for many a l.u.s.trum kings had reviewed devoted and conquering armies--a.s.sembled those desperate men; the loud winds agitating their tossing torches that struggled against the moonless night.

”Let us storm the Alhambra!” cried one of the band: ”let us seize Boabdil, and place him in the midst of us; let us rush against the Christians, buried in their proud repose!”

”Lelilies, Lelilies!--the Keys and the Crescent!” shouted the mob.

The shout died: and at the verge of the s.p.a.ce was suddenly heard a once familiar and ever-thrilling voice.

The Moors who heard it turned round in amaze and awe; and beheld, raised upon the stone upon which the criers or heralds had been wont to utter the royal proclamations, the form of Almamen, the santon, whom they had deemed already with the dead.

”Moors and people of Granada!” he said, in a solemn but hollow voice, ”I am with ye still. Your monarch and your heroes have deserted ye, but I am with ye to the last! Go not to the Alhambra: the fort is impenetrable--the guard faithful. Night will be wasted, and day bring upon you the Christian army. March to the gates; pour along the Vega; descend at once upon the foe!”

He spoke, and drew forth his sabre; it gleamed in the torchlight--the Moors bowed their heads in fanatic reverence--the santon sprang from the stone, and pa.s.sed into the centre of the crowd.

Then, once more, arose joyful shouts. The mult.i.tude had found a leader worthy of their enthusiasm; and in regular order, they formed themselves rapidly, and swept down the narrow streets.

Swelled by several scattered groups of desultory marauders (the ruffians and refuse of the city), the infidel numbers were now but a few furlongs from the great gate, whence they had been wont to issue on the foe.

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