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"Prince," replied Almamen, turning slowly, and recognising the intruder on his meditations, "I was but considering how many revolutions, which have shaken earth to its centre, those orbs have witnessed, unsympathising and unchanged." "Unsympathising!" repeated the Moor "yet thou believest in their effect upon the earth?"
Yet this indifference was by no means shared by the struggling crowds through which, from time to time, he musingly swept. "God is great!" said one man; "it is the Enchanter Almamen." "He hath locked up the manhood of Boabdil el Chico with the key of his spells," quoth another, stroking his beard; "I would curse him, if I dared."
But, though the accident of birth, which excluded him from all field for energy and ambition, had thus directed the powerful mind of Almamen to contemplation and study, nature had never intended passions so fierce for the calm, though visionary, pursuits to which he was addicted.
"Nay," said Elias, dismayed rather than excited by the vehemence of his comrade, "be not rash, son of Issachar, be not rash: peradventure thou wilt but exasperate the wrath of the rulers, and our substance thereby will be utterly consumed." Almamen drew back, placed his hand quietly on the Jew's shoulder, looked him hard in the face, and, gently laughing, turned away.
As they passed the copse in which Muza, two nights before, had met with Almamen, the Moor, lifting his head suddenly, beheld fixed upon him the dark eyes of the magician, as he emerged from the trees.
In fact, the outbreak of formidable conspiracies had suddenly rendered the appearance of Ferdinand necessary elsewhere; and, his intrigues with Almamen frustrated, he despaired of a very speedy conquest of the city.
"My father! is it indeed my father?" said Leila, recovering herself, and drawing back, that she might assure herself of that familiar face; "it is thou! it is it is! Oh! what blessed chance brings us together?" "That chance is the destiny that hurries me to my tomb," answered Almamen, solemnly. "Hark! hear you not the sound of their rushing steeds their impatient voices? They are on me now!"
Thereat the Jew drew his cloak around him, and quickened his pace. Almamen, in the meanwhile, sought, through dark and subterranean passages, known only to himself, his accustomed home.
The crowd dispersed, but not yet to their homes. The crime of Almamen worked against his whole race. Some rushed to the Jews' quarter, which they set on fire; others to the lonely mansion of Almamen. Ximen, on quitting the king, had been before the mob. Not anticipating such an effect of the popular rage, he had hastened to the house, which he now deemed at length his own.
"And right kingly shall be your guerdon," said the Spanish monarch: "meanwhile, accept this earnest of our favour." So saying, he took from his breast a chain of massive gold, the links of which were curiously inwrought with gems, and extended it to the Israelite. Almamen moved not. A dark flush upon his countenance bespoke the feelings he with difficulty restrained.
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