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You shall hear me through," gloated Abul Malek; and again Joseph bowed his tonsured head, murmuring: "It is my punishment." Ringed about thus by his enemies, the priest stood meekly, while the sweat came out upon his face; as the Saracen mocked and jeered at him he made no answer, except to move his lips in whispered grayer.
The son of the King of Granada, and all other hostages in possession of the Castilian sovereigns, were to be restored at the same time. Such were the conditions that the vizier Abul Kazim laid before the council of Granada as the best that could be obtained from the besieging foe.
About a mile further on the right-hand side, is a great walled enclosure, named after Ladli Begam, the sister of Abul Fazl, Akbar's famous Prime Minister and biographer. It formerly contained her tomb, as well as that of Sheikh Mubarak, her father, and of Faizi, her eldest brother. Many years ago the whole enclosure was sold by Government.
Abul Malek's venom passed them by; they gazed upon him with gentle eyes in which there was no spleen, although in him they recognized a bitter foe. As time wore on his hatred of their religion became centered upon the monks themselves, and he undertook by crafty means to annoy them.
Men rested and took from the earth new strength with which to resume the never-ending struggle between the Crescent and the Cross, wherefore Abul Malek's rage availed him nothing.
Muley Abul Hassan received the cavalier in state, seated on a magnificent divan and surrounded by the officers of his court, in the Hall of Ambassadors, one of the most sumptuous apartments of the Alhambra. When De Vera had delivered his message, a haughty and bitter smile curled the lip of the fierce monarch.
"Let us take the case of Ali Cogia and Abul Hassan. We all know about that, and if it had come before me I should have decided it differently from the way the Cadi did." All the boys agreed to this by clapping their hands. The leader then appointed one boy to take the part of Ali Cogia and another to be Abul Hassan. Still others were chosen to be guards and merchants and so on.
The Tarantchis then ruled the state by themselves, but the example they set of native rule was, to say the least, not encouraging. One chief after another was deposed and murdered. The same year witnessed no fewer than five leaders in the supreme place of power; and when Abul Oghlan assumed the title of Sultan the cup of their iniquities was already full.
When, however, at the expiration of the term of truce, Muley Abul Hassan sought a renewal of it, the pride and piety of the Castilian sovereigns were awakened to the flagrant defalcation of the infidel king, and they felt themselves called upon, by their dignity as monarchs and their religious obligations as champions of the faith, to make a formal demand for the payment of arrearages.
The evil day has passed by; the prophecy is fulfilled: the sceptre which has been broken in the feeble hand of Boabdil is destined to resume its former sway in the vigorous grasp of Abul Hassan."
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