Page:The Coming Race, etc - 1888.djvu/155

Rh "You resolve, then, upon prosecuting vengeance on the Moors, at whatsoever hazard of the broken faith of these Nazarenes?"

"Ay, the vapour of human blood hath risen unto heaven, and, collected into thunder clouds, hangs over the doomed and guilty city. And now, Ximen, I have a new cause for hatred to the Moors: the flower that I have reared and watched, the spoiler hath sought to pluck it from my hearth. Leila—thou hast guarded her ill, Ximen; and, wert thou not endeared to me by thy very malice and vices, the rising sun should have seen thy trunk on the waters of the Darro."

"My lord," replied Ximen, "if thou, the wisest of our people, canst not guard a maiden from love, how canst thou see crime in the dull eyes and numbed senses of a miserable old man?"

The Israelite did not answer, nor seem to hear this deprecatory remonstrance. He appeared rather occupied with his own thoughts; and, speaking to himself, he muttered, "It must be so: the sacrifice is hard the danger great; but here, at least, it is more immediate. It shall be done. Ximen," he continued, speaking aloud, "dost thou feel assured that even mine own countrymen, mine own tribe, know me not as one of them? Were my despised birth and religion published, my limbs would be torn asunder as an impostor; and all the arts of the Cabala could not save me."

"Doubt not, great master; none in Granada, save thy faithful Ximen, know thy secret."

"So let me dream and hope. And now to my work; for this night must be spent in toil."

The Hebrew drew before him some of the strange instruments we have described; and took from the recesses in the rock several scrolls. The old man lay at his feet, ready to obey his behests; but, to all appearance, rigid and motionless as the dead, whom his blanched hues and shrivelled form resembled. It was, indeed, as the picture of the enchanter at his work, and the corpse of some man of old, revived from the grave to minister to his spells, and execute his commands.

Enough in the preceding conversation has transpired to convince the reader, that the Hebrew, in whom he has already detected the Almamen of the Alhambra, was of no character common to his tribe. Of a lineage that shrouded itself in the darkness of his mysterious people, in their day of power, and possessed of immense wealth, which threw into poverty the resources of Gothic princes, the youth of that remarkable man had been spent, not in traffic and merchandise, but travel and study.

As a child, his home had been in Granada. He had seen his father butchered by the late king, Muley Abul Hassan, without