Part 20 (1/2)
And then, perhaps, had the Moors pa.s.sed these gates and reached the Christian encampment, lulled, as it was, in security and sleep, that wild army of twenty thousand desperate men might have saved Granada; and Spain might at this day possess the only civilised empire which the faith of Mohammed ever founded.
But the evil star of Boabdil prevailed. The news of the insurrection in the city reached him. Two aged men from the lower city arrived at the Alhambra--demanded and obtained an audience; and the effect of that interview was instantaneous upon Boabdil. In the popular frenzy he saw only a justifiable excuse for the Christian king to break the conditions of the treaty, rase the city, and exterminate the inhabitants. Touched by a generous compa.s.sion for his subjects, and actuated no less by a high sense of kingly honor, which led him to preserve a truce solemnly sworn to, he once more mounted his cream-coloured charger, with the two elders who had sought him by his side; and, at the head of his guard, rode from the Alhambra. The sound of his trumpets, the tramp of his steeds, the voice of his heralds, simultaneously reached the mult.i.tude; and, ere they had leisure to decide their course, the king was in the midst of them.
”What madness is this, O my people?” cried Boabdil, spurring into the midst of the throng,--”whither would ye go?”
”Against the Christian!--against the Goth!” shouted a thousand voices.
”Lead us on! The santon is risen from the dead, and will ride by thy right hand!”
”Alas!” resumed the king, ”ye would march against the Christian king!
Remember that our hostages are in his power: remember that he will desire no better excuse to level Granada with the dust, and put you and your children to the sword. We have made such treaty as never yet was made between foe and foe. Your lives, laws, wealth--all are saved.
Nothing is lost, save the crown of Boabdil. I am the only sufferer. So be it. My evil star brought on you these evil destinies: without me, you may revive, and be once more a nation. Yield to fate to-day, and you may grasp her proudest awards to-morrow. To succ.u.mb is not to be subdued.
But go forth against the Christians, and if ye win one battle, it is but to incur a more terrible war; if you lose, it is not honourable capitulation, but certain extermination, to which you rus.h.!.+ Be persuaded, and listen once again to your king.”
The crowd were moved, were softened, were half-convinced. They turned, in silence, towards their santon; and Almamen did not shrink from the appeal; but stood forth, confronting the king.
”King of Granada!” he cried aloud, ”behold thy friend--thy prophet! Lo!
I a.s.sure you victory!”
”Hold!” interrupted Boabdil; ”thou hast deceived and betrayed me too long! Moors! know ye this pretended santon? He is of no Moslem creed. He is a hound of Israel who would sell you to the best bidder. Slay him!”
”Ha!” cried Almamen, ”and who is my accuser?”
”Thy servant-behold him!” At these words the royal guards lifted their torches, and the glare fell redly on the death-like features of Ximen.
”Light of the world! there be other Jews that know him,” said the traitor.
”Will ye suffer a Jew to lead ye, O race of the Prophet?” cried the king.
The crowd stood confused and bewildered. Almamen felt his hour was come; he remained silent, his arms folded, his brow erect.
”Be there any of the tribes of Moisa amongst the crowd?” cried Boabdil, pursuing his advantage; ”if so, let them approach and testify what they know.” Forth came--not from the crowd, but from amongst Boabdil's train, a well-known Israelite.
”We disown this man of blood and fraud,” said Elias, bowing to the earth; ”but he was of our creed.”
”Speak, false santon! art thou dumb?” cried the king.
”A curse light on thee, dull fool!” cried Almamen, fiercely. ”What matters who the instrument that would have restored to thee thy throne?
Yes! I, who have ruled thy councils, who have led thine armies, I am of the race of Joshua and of Samuel--and the Lord of Hosts is the G.o.d of Almamen!”
A shudder ran through that mighty mult.i.tude: but the looks, the mien, and the voice of the man awed them, and not a weapon was raised against him. He might, even then, have pa.s.sed scathless through the crowd; he might have borne to other climes his burning pa.s.sions and his torturing woes: but his care for life was past; he desired but to curse his dupes, and to die. He paused, looked round and burst into a laugh of such bitter and haughty scorn, as the tempted of earth may hear in the halls below from the lips of Eblis.
”Yes,” he exclaimed, ”such I am! I have been your idol and your lord.
I may be your victim, but in death I am your vanquisher. Christian and Moslem alike my foe, I would have trampled upon both. But the Christian, wiser than you, gave me smooth words; and I would have sold ye to his power; wickeder than you, he deceived me; and I would have crushed him that I might have continued to deceive and rule the puppets that ye call your chiefs. But they for whom I toiled, and laboured, and sinned--for whom I surrendered peace and ease, yea, and a daughter's person and a daughter's blood--they have betrayed me to your hands, and the Curse of Old rests with them evermore--Amen! The disguise is rent: Almamen, the santon, is the son of Issachar the Jew!”
More might he have said, but the spell was broken. With a ferocious yell, those living waves of the mult.i.tude rushed over the stern fanatic; six cimiters pa.s.sed through him, and he fell not: at the seventh he was a corpse. Trodden in the clay--then whirled aloft--limb torn from limb,--ere a man could have drawn breath nine times, scarce a vestige of the human form was left to the mangled and b.l.o.o.d.y clay.
One victim sufficed to slake the wrath of the crowd. They gathered like wild beasts whose hunger is appeased, around their monarch, who in vain had endeavored to stay their summary revenge, and who now, pale and breathless, shrank from the pa.s.sions he had excited. He faltered forth a few words of remonstrance and exhortation, turned the head of his steed, and took his way to his palace.