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To propose to Hakem some bold and perilous enterprise, was to offer him one of the few pleasures to which he was open. He accepted, therefore, of the strange commission now entrusted to him without hesitation; stipulating, only, that he might take from the stables of the king a horse which was much celebrated for its amazing power and fleetness.

Again, in the same angle of the apartment, the Arab slave might have been seen standing, silent and motionless as before, regarding with deep interest and commiseration the beautiful daughter of Laski. The secret which she was about, on one occasion, to betray to Hakem, had now betrayed itself to his own observation. She loved she loved the son of him whom he had assassinated, or executed.

"All the deeds of Hakem were without motive," says the Arab historian Makrisi, "and the dreams suggested to him by his frenzy are incapable of reasonable interpretation." These and many other similar stories reached the West, spread amongst the Christian people and roused them to pity for their brethren in the East and to wrath against the oppressors.

Instead of the drunken and gluttonous wassail orgies of their northern neighbours, the feasts of the Saracens were marked by sobriety. Wine was prohibited.... In the tenth century, the Khalif Hakem II. had made beautiful Andalusia the paradise of the world.

The joy of Maria was extreme. It was soon, however, followed by a painful embarrassment. Amongst all parties there was a sad conflict of feeling. Augustus would have given worlds to have thrown himself at the feet of Maria; but if the memory of what had occurred had not been sufficient, there stood her father in person before him the author of his own father's death. Hakem broke the silence.

Hakem set spurs to his horse, and rushed upon him with the velocity of lightning, his drawn cimeter flashing in the sun, and his loud cry of defiance calling the duke to his defence. Thus challenged, he put his lance in rest to meet his furious assailant. But the thrust of the lance was avoided, and the next moment the head of the duke was seen to roll upon the field.

When, therefore, she heard his voice reply, in a calm but saddened tone, "I will!" she was almost as much surprised as if she had not addressed herself to him. She rose to be assured that it was he who spoke; to bid him repeat his consolatory promise; to question him on his means of fulfilling it: but Hakem was no longer there; he had suddenly quitted the apartment.

"VII. Disputes between Moorish subjects and English subjects, shall be decided in the presence of the English Consuls, provided the decision be comformable to the Moorish law, in which case the English subject shall not go before the Kady or Hakem, as the Consul's decision shall suffice.

The treatise of Albategnius on "The Science of the Stars" is spoken of by Laplace with respect; he also draws attention to an important fragment of Ibn-Junis, the astronomer of Hakem, the Khalif of Egypt, A.D. 1000, as containing a long series of observations from the time of Almansor, of eclipses, equinoxes, solstices, conjunctions of planets, occultations of stars observations which have cast much light on the great variations of the system of the world.

The pathetic tale excited the millions of the West to march under the standard of the cross to the relief of the Holy Land; and yet how trifling is the sum of these accumulated evils, if compared with the single act of the sacrilege of Hakem, which had been so patiently endured by the Latin Christians!