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His spirits sank with his fortune, and he feared that in a little time he should not have a spot of earth whereon to plant his standard nor an adherent to rally under it. In the midst of his despondency he received a message from his lion-hearted mother, the sultana Ayxa la Horra. It was brought by the steadfast adherent to their fortunes, Aben Comixa.
Notwithstanding the deadly rivalship of this youthful sultana with Ayxa la Horra, the virtuous mother of Boabdil, and the disasters to which her ambitious intrigues gave rise, the placable spirit of Boabdil bore her no lasting enmity. After the death of his father he treated her with respect and kindness, and evinced a brotherly feeling toward her sons Cad and Nazar.
Many of the most illustrious and valiant of the Moorish nobility assembled round his standard, magnificently arrayed in sumptuous armor and rich embroidery, as though for a festival or a tilt of canes rather than an enterprise of iron war. Boabdil's mother, the sultana Ayxa la Horra, armed him for the field, and gave him her benediction as she girded his scimetar to his side.
"Ay," answered Ayxa la Horra, for it was indeed that celebrated, and haughty, and high-souled queen, "and unwelcome; so is ever that of your true friends. But not thus unwelcome was the presence of your mother, when her brain and her hand delivered you from the dungeon in which your stern father had cast your youth, and the dagger and the bowl seemed the only keys that would unlock the cell."
The sultana Zoraya and her two sons were lodged in the Alhambra, in the Tower of Comares. This was a residence in a palace, but it had proved a royal prison to the sultana Ayxa la Horra and her youthful son Boabdil.
The sultana Ayxa, apprised of the imminent danger of her son, concerted a plan for his escape. At the dead of the night she gained access to his prison, and, tying together the shawls and scarfs of herself and her female attendants, lowered him down from a balcony of the Alhambra to the steep rocky hillside which sweeps down to the Darro.
Still he trusted that in the fluctuation of events the inconstant nation might once more return to his standard and replace him on the throne of the Alhambra. His mother, the high-spirited sultana Ayxa la Horra, endeavored to rouse him from this passive state. "It is a feeble mind," said she, "that waits for the turn of fortune's wheel; the brave mind seizes upon it and turns it to its purpose.
He was met on the frontier by the principal nobles and cavaliers of his court, who had been secretly sent by his mother, the sultana Ayxa, to escort him to the capital.
"Ay," answered Ayxa la Horra, for it was indeed that celebrated, and haughty, and high-souled queen, "and unwelcome; so is ever that of your true friends. But not thus unwelcome was the presence of your mother, when her brain and her hand delivered you from the dungeon in which your stern father had cast your youth, and the dagger and the bowl seemed the only keys that would unlock the cell."
In this way the mind of the public had been turned from him; the greater part of the nobility had thronged round the throne of his father in the Alhambra; and his mother, the resolute sultana Ayxa, with difficulty maintained her faction in the opposite towers of the Alcazaba. Such was the melancholy picture of affairs given to Boabdil by the courtiers who had come forth to meet him.
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