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"You miserable peddlers of groceries! Always fleecing people! But your time is past! Now come the English! They are another sort!" Jaen the seaman became gloomy, and that annoyed the Czar still more. He wanted to enjoy Jaen's company, and therefore sought to divert his thoughts. "Landlord," he cried, "bring champagne!"
And Jaen's proud hidalgos, Andujar's yeomen true, And the lords of towered Ubeda the pagan foes pursue; And valiantly they meet the foe nor turn their backs in flight, And worthy do they show themselves of their fathers' deeds of might, While in Baeza every bell Does the appalling tidings tell, "Arm! Arm!" Rings on the night the loud alarm.
What boots it, Lindaraja, that I, at Jaen's gate, That unsurrendered city, have met my final fate? What boots it, that this city proud will ne'er the Soldan own, For thee and not for Jaen this hour I make my moan; I weep for Lindaraja, I weep to think that she May mourn a hostage and a slave in long captivity.
Rings on the night the loud alarm. Now Reduan gazes from afar on Jaen's ramparts high, And tho' he smiles in triumph yet fear is in his eye, And vowed has he, whose courage none charged with a default, That he would climb the ramparts and take it by assault, Yet round the town the towers and walls the city's streets impale, And who of all his squadrons that bastion can scale?
But when the news of gladness reached Adalifa's ear, Her loving heart was touched with grief and filled with jealous fear; And she wrote to Celin, bidding him to hold no revel high, For the thought of such rejoicing brought the tear-drop to her eye; The Moor received the letter as Granada came in sight, And straight he turned his courser's head toward Jaen's towering height, And exchanged for hues of mourning his robe of festal white.
Ah! now too late I mourn the word that sent me on this quest, For I see that death awaits me here whilst thou livest on at rest, For I must enter Jaen's gates a conqueror or be sent Far from Granada's happy hills in hopeless banishment; But sorest is the thought that I to Lindaraja swore: If Jaen should repulse me I'd return to her no more; No more a happy lover would I linger at her side, Until Granada's warrior host had humbled Jaen's pride."
And dwelling on thy beauty he will deem it better far, To win fair Lindaraja than all the spoils of war, Yet would I pray if Mahomet, whose servant I have been, Should ever from the throne of God look on this bloody scene, And deem it right to all my vows requital fit to make, And for my valor who attacked the town I could not take, That he would make thy constancy as steadfast as the tower Of Jaen's mighty fortress, that withstood the Moorish power; Now as my life be ebbing fast, my spirit is oppressed, And Reduan the warrior bold is sinking to his rest, Oh, may my prayers be answered, if so kind heaven allow, And may the King forgive me for the failure of my vow, And, Lindaraja, may my soul, when it has taken its flight, And for the sweet Elysian fields exchange these realms of night, Contented in the joys and peace of that celestial seat, Await the happy moment when we once more shall meet."
With pillage and with fire he wastes the fields and fruitful farms, And thro' the startled border-land is heard the call to arms; By Jaen's towers his host advance and, like a lightning flash, Ubeda and Andujar can see his horsemen dash, While in Baeza every bell Does the appalling tidings tell, "Arm! Arm!" Rings on the night the loud alarm.
Czar Peter shaded his eyes, and, when he recognised his old teacher and friend, Jaen Scheerborck from Amsterdam, he jumped into the boat over the rowers' shoulders and knees, rushed into Jaen's arms and kissed him, so that his pipe broke and the seaman's great grey beard was full of smoke and nearly took fire.
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