Page:The Coming Race, etc - 1888.djvu/275

Rh 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 God of Almamen!"

A shudder ran through that mighty multitude: 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 passed scathless through the crowd; he might have borne to other climes his burning passions 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, Christ an 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