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Updated: June 27, 2025
"A Jew!" replied Almamen, in a voice of thunder, and drawing his cimiter: "a despised and despising Jew! Ask you more? I am the son of a race of kings. I was the worst enemy of the Moors till I found the Nazarene more hateful than the Moslem; and then even Muza himself was not their more renowned champion. Come on, if thou wilt man to man: I defy thee"
Proud, melancholy, and sensitive as he was in that hour of reverse, Boabdil felt no grief: such balm has Love for our sorrows, when its wings are borrowed from the dove! While Boabdil and the body of the army remained in the city, Muza, with a chosen detachment of the horse, scoured the country to visit the newly- acquired cities, and sustain their courage.
Alas! if my counsel were heeded, thou wouldst hear the warriors of Granada talk less of Muza, and more of the king. But Fate, or Allah, hath placed upon the throne of a tottering dynasty, one who, though brave, is weak though, wise, a dreamer; and you suspect the adviser, when you find the influence of nature on the advised. Is this just?"
Many flung themselves at his feet, with tears and sighs; and the crowd gathered round to touch the hem of his robe. Muza gazed at them in deep disdain, with folded arms and heaving breast. "Women, not men!" he exclaimed, "ye weep, as if ye had not blood still left to shed! Ye are reconciled to the loss of liberty, because ye are told ye shall lose nothing else. Fools and dupes!
My father appeared before me not as I knew him in life gaunt and terrible, full of the vigour of health, and the strength of kingly empire, and of fierce passion but wan, calm, shadowy. From lips on which Azrael had set his livid seal, he bade me beware of thee!" The king ceased suddenly; and sought to read on the face of Muza the effect his words produced.
His favourite slave, Amine, reclined upon the ottomans, gazing with anxious love upon his thoughtful countenance, as he leant against the glittering wall by the side of the casement, gazing abstractedly on the scene below. From afar he heard the shouts of the populace at the return of Muza, and bursts of artillery confirmed the tidings of triumph which had already been borne to his ear.
But when, the next eve, and the next, Muza returned to the spot equally in vain, his impatience and alarm could no longer be restrained; he resolved to lie in watch by the portals of the house night and day, until, at least, he could discover some one of the inmates, whom he could question of his love, and perhaps bribe to his service.
Muza swerved aside, just as the heavy falchion swung over his head, and by a back stroke of his own cimiter, shore through the cuirass just above the hip-joint, and the blood followed the blade. The brave cavaliers saw the danger of their chief; three of their number darted forward, and came in time to separate the combatants.
As he concluded, the lattice softly opened; and a female form appeared on the balcony. "Ah, Leila!" said the Moor, "I see thee, and I am blessed!" "Hush!" answered Leila; "speak low, nor tarry long I fear that our interviews are suspected; and this," she added in a trembling voice, "may perhaps be the last time we shall meet." "Holy Prophet!" exclaimed Muza, passionately, "what do I hear?
"God bless and reconcile thee, poor child!" he said, in a voice choked with contending passions and the door closed upon his form. "I thank thee, Heaven, that it was not Muza!" muttered Leila, breaking from a reverie in which she seemed to be communing with her own soul: "I feel that I could not have resisted him."
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