Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (Spanish).djvu/147

Rh "May the benediction of Allah rest on all good men who read these lines!

"There is no glory but the glory of Allah, whose prophet and messenger Mohammed was and is, in the hearts of the faithful.

"May those who rob the house of him who is at the wars, or in exile, be accursed of Allah and of Mohammed, and die eaten up by beetles and cockroaches!

"Blessed be Allah, who created these and other vermin to devour the wicked!

"I am the caid Hassan-ben-Jussef, the servant of Allah, although I am miscalled Don Rodrigo de Acuña by the successors of the Christian dogs who, by force and in violation of solemn compact, baptized, with a broom of hyssop, my ill-fated ancestors, together with many other Islamites of these kingdoms.

"I am a captain, serving under the banner of him whose lawful title, since the death of AbenHumaya, is King of Andalusia, Muley-AbdallahMahamud-Aben-Aboó, who does not now sit on the throne of Granada because of the treachery and cowardice with which the Moors of Valencia broke their oaths and compacts, failing to rise with the Moors of Granada against the common enemy; but they will receive their reward from Allah, and if we are conquered, they, too, will be conquered and in the end expelled from Spain, without the merit of having fought to the last on