Leila or, the Siege of Granada, Book IV

"Hush, man!" said Almamen, quickly, and looking sharply round; "I thy countryman! Art thou not, as thy speech betokens, an Israelite?"

"Yea," returned the Jew, "and of the same tribe as thy honoured father— peace be with his ashes! I remembered thee at once, boy though thou wert when thy steps shook off the dust against Granada. I remembered thee, I say, at once, on thy return; but I have kept thy secret, trusting that, through thy soul and genius, thy fallen brethren might put off sackcloth and feast upon the house-tops."

Almamen looked hard at the keen, sharp, Arab features of the Jew; and at length he answered, "And how can Israel be restored? wilt thou fight for her?"

"I am too old, son of Issachar, to bear arms; but our tribes are many, and our youth strong. Amid these disturbances between dog and dog—"

"The lion may get his own," interrupted Almamen, impetuously,—"let us hope it. Hast thou heard of the new persecutions against us that the false Nazarene king has already commenced in Cordova—persecutions that make the heart sick and the blood cold?"

"Alas!" replied Elias, "such woes indeed have not failed to reach mine ear; and I have kindred, near and beloved kindred, wealthy and honoured men, scattered throughout that land."

"Were it not better that they should die on the field than by the rack?" exclaimed Almamen, fiercely. "God of my fathers! if there be yet a spark of manhood left amongst thy people, let thy servant fan it to a flame, that shall burn as the fire burns the stubble, so that the earth may bare before the blaze!"

"Nay," said Elias, dismayed rather than excited by the vehemence of his comrade,—"be not rash, son of Issachar, be not rash: peradventure thou wilt but exasperate the wrath of the rulers, and our substance thereby will be utterly consumed."

Almamen drew back, placed his hand quietly on the Jew's shoulder, looked him hard in the face, and, gently laughing, turned away.

Elias did not attempt to arrest his steps. "Impracticable," he muttered; "impracticable and dangerous! I always thought so. He may do us harm: were he not so strong and fierce, I would put my knife under his left rib. Verily, gold is a great thing; and—out on me! the knaves at home will be wasting the oil, now they know old Elias is abroad." Thereat the Jew drew his cloak around him, and quickened his pace.

Almamen, in the meanwhile, sought, through dark and subterranean passages, known only to himself, his accustomed home. He passed much of the night alone; but, ere the morning star announced to the mountain tops the presence of the sun, he stood, prepared for his journey, in his secret vault, by the door of the subterranean passages, with old Ximen beside him.

"I go, Ximen," said Almamen, "upon a doubtful quest: whether I discover my daughter, and succeed in bearing her in safety from their contaminating grasp, or whether I fall into their snares and perish, there is an equal chance that I may return no more to Granada. Should this be so, you will be heir to such wealth as I leave in these places I know that your age will be consoled for the lack of children when your eyes look upon the laugh of gold."

Ximen bowed low, and mumbled out some inaudible protestations and thanks. Almamen sighed heavily as he looked round the room. "I have evil omens in my soul, and evil prophecies in my books," said he, mournfully. "But the worst is here," he added, putting his finger significantly to his temples; "the string is stretched—one more blow would snap it."

As he thus said, he opened the door and vanished through that labyrinth of galleries by which he was enabled at all times to reach unobserved either the palace of the Alhambra or the gardens without the gates of the city.

Ximen remained behind a few moments in deep thought. "All mine if he dies!" said he: "all mine if he does not return! All mine, all mine! and I have not a child nor a kinsman in the world to clutch it away from me!" With that he locked the vault, and returned to the upper air.

CHAPTER III

THE FUGITIVE AND THE MEETING

In their different directions the rival kings were equally successful. Salobrena, but lately conquered by the Christians, was thrown into a commotion by the first glimpse of Boabdil's banners; the populace rose, beat back their Christian guards, and opened the gates to the last of their race of kings. The garrison alone, to which the Spaniards retreated, resisted Boabdil's arms; and, defended by, impregnable walls, promised an obstinate and bloody siege.

Meanwhile, Ferdinand had no sooner entered Cordova than his extensive scheme of confiscation and holy persecution commenced. Not only did more than five hundred Jews perish in the dark and secret gripe of the Grand Inquisitor, but several hundred of the wealthiest Christian families, in whose blood was detected the hereditary Jewish taint, were thrown into prison; and such as were most fortunate purchased life by the sacrifice of half their treasures. At this time, however, there suddenly broke forth a formidable insurrection amongst these miserable subjects—the Messenians of the Iberian Sparta. The Jews were so far aroused from their long debasement by omnipotent despair, that a single spark, falling on the ashes of their ancient spirit, rekindled the flame of the descendants of the fierce warriors of Palestine. They were encouraged and assisted by the suspected Christians, who had been involved in the same persecution; and the whole were headed by a man who appeared suddenly amongst them, and whose fiery eloquence and martial spirit produced, at such a season, the most fervent enthusiasm. Unhappily, the whole details of this singular outbreak are withheld from us; only by wary hints and guarded allusions do the Spanish chroniclers apprise us of its existence and its perils. It is clear that all narrative of an event that might afford the most dangerous precedent, and was alarming to the pride and avarice of the Spanish king, as well as the pious zeal of the Church, was strictly forbidden; and the conspiracy was hushed in the dread silence of the Inquisition, into whose hands the principal conspirators ultimately fell. We learn, only, that a determined and sanguinary struggle was followed by the triumph of Ferdinand, and the complete extinction of the treason.

It was one evening, that a solitary fugitive, hard chased by an armed troop of the brothers of St. Hermandad, was seen emerging from a wild and rocky defile, which opened abruptly on the gardens of a small, and, by the absence of fortification and sentries, seemingly deserted, castle. Behind him; in the exceeding stillness which characterises the air of a Spanish twilight, he heard, at a considerable distance the blast of the horn and the tramp of hoofs. His pursuers, divided into several detachments, were scouring the country after him, as the fishermen draw their nets, from bank to bank, conscious that the prey they drive before the meshes cannot escape them at the last. The fugitive halted in doubt, and gazed round him: he was well-nigh exhausted; his eyes were bloodshot; the large drops rolled fast down his brow; his whole frame quivered and palpitated, like that of a stag when he stands at bay. Beyond the castle spread a broad plain, far as the eye could reach, without shrub or hollow to conceal his form: flight across a space so favourable to his pursuers was evidently in vain. No alternative was left unless he turned back on the very path taken by the horsemen, or trusted to such scanty and perilous shelter as the copses in the castle garden might afford him. He decided on the latter refuge, cleared the low and lonely wall that girded the demesne, and plunged into a thicket of overhanging oaks and chestnuts.

At that hour, and in that garden, by the side of a little fountain, were seated two females: the one of mature and somewhat advanced years; the other, in the flower of virgin youth. But the flower was prematurely faded; and neither the bloom, nor sparkle, nor undulating play of feature, that should have suited her age, was visible in the marble paleness and contemplative sadness of her beautiful countenance.

"Alas! my young friend," said the elder of these ladies, "it is in these hours of solitude and calm that we are most deeply impressed with the nothingness of life. Thou, my sweet convert, art now the object, no longer of my compassion, but my envy; and earnestly do I feel convinced of the blessed repose thy spirit will enjoy in the lap of the Mother Church. Happy are they who die young! but thrice happy they who die in the spirit rather than the flesh: dead to sin, but not to virtue; to terror, not to hope; to man, but not to God!"

"Dear senora," replied the young maiden, mournfully, "were I alone on earth, Heaven is my witness with what deep and thankful resignation I should take the holy vows, and forswear the past; but the heart remains human, however divine the hope that it may cherish. And sometimes I start, and think of home, of childhood, of my strange but beloved father, deserted and childless in his old age."

"Thine, Leila," returned the elder Senora, "are but the sorrows our nature is doomed to. What matter, whether absence or death sever the affections? Thou lamentest a father; I, a son, dead in the pride of his youth and beauty—a husband, languishing in the fetters of the Moor. Take comfort for thy sorrows, in the reflection that sorrow is the heritage of all."

Ere Leila could reply, the orange-boughs that sheltered the spot where they sat were put aside, and between the women and the fountain stood the dark form of Almamen the Israelite. Leila rose, shrieked, and flung herself, unconscious, on his breast.

"O Lord of Israel!" cried Almamen, in atone of deep anguish. "I, then, at last regain my child? Do I press her to my heart? and is it only for that brief moment, when I stand upon the brink of death? Leila, my child, look up! smile upon thy father; let him feel, on his maddening and burning brow, the sweet breath of the last of his race, and bear with him, at least, one holy and gentle thought to the dark grave."

"My father! is it indeed my father?" said Leila, recovering herself, and drawing back, that she might assure herself of that familiar face; "it is thou! it is—it is! Oh! what blessed chance brings us together?"

"That chance is the destiny that hurries me to my tomb," answered Almamen, solemnly. "Hark! hear you not the sound of their rushing steeds—their impatient voices? They are on me now!"

"Who? Of whom speakest thou?"

"My pursuers—the horsemen of the Spaniard."

"Oh, senora, save him!" cried Leila, turning to Donna Inez, whom both father and child had hitherto forgotten, and who now stood gazing upon Almamen with wondering and anxious eyes. "Whither can he fly? The vaults of the castle may conceal him. This way-hasten!"

"Stay," said Inez, trembling, and approaching close to Almamen: "do I see aright? and, amidst the dark change of years and trial, do I recognise that stately form, which once contrasted to the sad eye of a mother the drooping and faded form of her only son? Art thou not he who saved my boy from the pestilence, who accompanied him to the shores of Naples, and consigned him to these arms? Look on me! dost thou not recall the mother of thy friend?"

"I recall thy features dimly and as in a dream," answered the Hebrew; "and while thou speakest, there rush upon me the memories of an earlier time, in lands where Leila first looked upon the day, and her mother sang to me at sunset by the stream of the Euphrates, and on the sites of departed empires. Thy son—I remember now: I had friendship then with a Christian—for I was still young."

"Waste not the time—father—senora!" cried Leila, impatiently clinging still to her father's breast.

"You are right; nor shall your sire, in whom I thus wonderfully recognise my son's friend, perish if I can save him."

Inez then conducted her strange guest to a small door in the rear of the castle; and after leading him through some of the principal apartments, left him in one of the tiring-rooms adjoining her own chamber, and the entrance to which the arras concealed. She rightly judged this a safer retreat than the vaults of the castle might afford, since her great name and known intimacy with Isabel would preclude all suspicion of her abetting in the escape of the fugitive, and keep those places the most secure in which, without such aid, he could not have secreted himself.

In a few minutes, several of the troop arrived at the castle, and on learning the name of its owner contented themselves with searching the gardens, and the lower and more exposed apartments; and then recommending to the servants a vigilant look-out remounted, and proceeded to scour the plain, over which now slowly fell the starlight and shade of night. When Leila stole, at last, to the room in which Almamen was hid, she found him, stretched on his mantle, in a deep sleep. Exhausted by all he had undergone, and his rigid nerves, as it were, relaxed by the sudden softness of that interview with his child, the slumber of that fiery wanderer was as calm as an infant's. And their relation almost seemed reversed; and the daughter to be as a mother watching over her offspring, when Leila seated herself softly by him, fixing her eyes—to which the tears came ever, ever to be brushed away-upon his worn but tranquil features, made yet more serene by the quiet light that glimmered through the casement. And so passed the hours of that night; and the father and the child—the meek convert, the revengeful fanatic—were under the same roof.

CHAPTER IV

ALMAMEN HEARS AND SEES, BUT REFUSES TO BELIEVE; FOR THE BRAIN, OVERWROUGHT, GROWS DULL, EVEN IN THE KEENEST

The dawn broke slowly upon the chamber, and Almamen still slept. It was the Sabbath of the Christians—that day on which the Saviour rose from the dead—thence named so emphatically and sublimely by the early Church THE LORD'S DAY.

[Before the Christian era, the Sunday was, however, called the Lord's day—i.e., the day of the Lord the Sun.]

And as the ray of the sun flashed in the east it fell like a glory, over a crucifix, placed in the deep recess of the Gothic casement; and brought startlingly before the eyes of Leila that face upon which the rudest of the Catholic sculptors rarely fail to preserve the mystic and awful union of the expiring anguish of the man with the lofty patience of the God. It looked upon her, that face; it invited, it encouraged, while it thrilled and subdued. She stole gently from the side of her father; she crept to the spot, and flung herself on her knees beside the consecrated image.

"Support me, O Redeemer!" she murmured—"support thy creature! strengthen her steps in the blessed path, though it divide her irrevocably from all that on earth she loves: and if there be a sacrifice in her solemn choice, accept, O Thou, the Crucified! accept it, in part atonement of the crime of her stubborn race; and, hereafter, let the lips of a maiden of Judaea implore thee, not in vain, for some mitigation of the awful curse that hath fallen justly upon her tribe."

As broken by low sobs, and in a choked and muttered voice, Leila poured forth her prayer, she was startled by a deep groan; and turning, in alarm she saw that Almamen had awaked, and, leaning on his arm, was now bending upon her his dark eyes, once more gleaming with all their wonted fire.

"Speak," he said, as she coweringly hid her face, "speak to me, or I shall be turned to stone by one horrid thought. It is not before that symbol that thou kneelest in adoration; and my sense wanders, if it tell me that thy broken words expressed the worship of an apostate? In mercy, speak!"

"Father!" began Leila; but her lips refused to utter more than that touching and holy word.

Almamen rose; and plucking the hands from her face, gazed on her some moments, as if he would penetrate her very soul; and Leila, recovering her courage in the pause, by degrees met his eyes unquailing—her pure and ingenuous brow raised to his, and sadness, but not guilt, speaking from every line of that lovely face.

"Thou dost not tremble," said Almamen, at length, breaking the silence, "and I have erred. Thou art not the criminal I deemed thee. Come to my arms!"

"Alas!" said Leila, obeying the instinct, and casting herself upon that rugged bosom. "I will dare, at least, not to disavow my God. Father! by that dread anathema which is on our race, which has made us homeless and powerless—outcasts and strangers in the land; by the persecution and anguish we have known, teach thy lordly heart that we are rightly punished for the persecution and the anguish we doomed to Him, whose footstep hallowed our native earth! FIRST, IN THE HISTORY of THE WORLD, DID THE STERN HEBREWS INFLICT UPON MANKIND THE AWFUL CRIME OF PERSECUTION FOR OPINIONS SAKE. The seed we sowed hath brought forth the Dead Sea fruit upon which we feed. I asked for resignation and for hope: I looked upon yonder cross, and I found both. Harden not thy heart; listen to thy child; wise though thou be, and weak though her woman spirit, listen to me."

"Be dumb!" cried Almamen, in such a voice as might have come from the charnel, so ghostly and deathly sounded its hollow tone; then, recoiling some steps, he placed both his hands upon his temples, and muttered, "Mad, mad! yes, yes, this is but a delirium, and I am tempted with a devil! Oh, my child!" he resumed, in a voice that became, on the sudden, inexpressibly tender and imploring, "I have been sorely tried; and I dreamt a feverish dream of passion and revenge. Be thine the lips, and thine the soothing hand, that shall wake me from it. Let us fly for ever from these hated lands; let us leave to these miserable infidels their bloody contest, careless which shall fall. To a soil on which the iron heel does not clang, to an air where man's orisons rise, in solitude, to the Great Jehovah, let us hasten our weary steps. Come! while the castle yet sleeps, let us forth unseen—the father and the child. We will hold sweet commune by the way. And hark ye, Leila," he added, in a low and abrupt whisper, "talk not to me of yonder symbol; for thy God is a jealous God, and hath no likeness in the graven image."