Page:The Coming Race, etc - 1888.djvu/264

250 divine aright; and, could thy spells bestow on these eyes but one more sight of the last treasure left to me on earth, I should be as credulous of thy sorcery as Boabdil."

"Thou lovest her still, then—this Leila?"

"Dark necromancer, hast thou read my secret? and knowest thou the name of my beloved one? Ah! let me believe thee indeed wise, and reveal to me the spot of earth which holds the delight of my soul! Yes," continued the Moor, with increased emotion, and throwing up his vizor, as if for air—"yes; Allah forgive me! but, when all was lost at Granada, I had still one consolation in leaving my fated birthplace: I had licence to search for Leila; I had the hope to secure to my wanderings in distant lands one to whose glance the eyes of the houris would be dim. But I waste words. Tell me where is Leila, and conduct me to her feet!"

"Moslem, I will lead thee to her," answered Almamen, gazing on the prince with an expression of strange and fearful exultation in his dark eyes: "I will lead thee to her—follow me. It is only yesternight that 1 learned the walls that confined her; and from that hour to this have I journeyed over mountain and desert, without rest or food."

"Yet what is she to thee?" asked Muza, suspiciously.

"Thou shalt learn full soon. Let us on."

So saying, Almamen sprang forward with a vigour which the excitement of his mind supplied to the exhaustion of his body. Muza wonderingly pushed on his charger, and endeavoured to draw his mysterious guide into conversation: but Almamen scarcely heeded him. And when he broke from his gloomy silence, it was but in incoherent and brief exclamations, often in a tongue foreign to the ear of his companion. The hardy Moor, though steeled against the superstitions of his race, less by the philosophy of the learned than the contempt of the brave, felt an awe gather over him as he glanced, from the giant rocks and lonely valleys, to the unearthly aspect and glittering eyes of the reputed sorcerer; and more that once he muttered such verses of the Koran as were esteemed by his countrymen the counterspell to the machinations of the evil genii.

It might be an hour that they had thus journeyed together, when Almamen paused abruptly: "I am wearied," said he, faintly; "and, though time presses, I fear that my strength will fail me."

"Mount, then, behind me," returned the Moor, after sorm natural hesitation : "Jew though thou art, I will brave the com lamination for the sake of Leila."

"Moor!" cried the Hebrew, fiercely, "the contamination would be mine. Things of the yesterday, as thy prophet and thy creed