The Alhambra 39

The Alhambra 39

So saying, he ordered that a tower of the Alhambra should be prepared

for their reception, and departed at the head of his guards for the

fortress of Salobreña, to conduct them home in person.

 

About three years had elapsed since Mohamed had beheld his daughters,

and he could scarcely credit his eyes at the wonderful change which that

small space of time had made in their appearance. During the interval,

they had passed that wondrous boundary line in female life which

separates the crude, unformed, and thoughtless girl from the blooming,

blushing, meditative woman. It is like passing from the flat, bleak,

uninteresting plains of La Mancha to the voluptuous valleys and swelling

hills of Andalusia.

 

Zayda was tall and finely formed, with a lofty demeanor and a

penetrating eye. She entered with a stately and decided step, and made a

profound reverence to Mohamed, treating him more as her sovereign than

her father. Zorayda was of the middle height, with an alluring look and

swimming gait, and a sparkling beauty, heightened by the assistance of

the toilette. She approached her father with a smile, kissed his hand,

and saluted him with several stanzas from a popular Arabian poet, with

which the monarch was delighted. Zorahayda was shy and timid, smaller

than her sisters, and with a beauty of that tender beseeching kind which

looks for fondness and protection. She was little fitted to command,

like her elder sister, or to dazzle like the second, but was rather

formed to creep to the bosom of manly affection, to nestle within it,

and be content. She drew near to her father, with a timid and almost

faltering step, and would have taken his hand to kiss, but on looking up

into his face, and seeing it beaming with a paternal smile, the

tenderness of her nature broke forth, and she threw herself upon his

neck.

 

Mohamed the Left-handed surveyed his blooming daughters with mingled

pride and perplexity, for while he exulted in their charms, he bethought

himself of the prediction of the astrologers. “Three daughters! three

daughters!” muttered he repeatedly to himself, “and all of a

marriageable age! Here’s tempting Hesperian fruit, that requires a

dragon watch!”

 

He prepared for his return to Granada, by sending heralds before him,

commanding every one to keep out of the road by which he was to pass,

and that all doors and windows should be closed at the approach of the

princesses. This done, he set forth, escorted by a troop of black

horsemen of hideous aspect, and clad in shining armor.

 

The princesses rode beside the king, closely veiled, on beautiful white

palfreys, with velvet caparisons, embroidered with gold, and sweeping

the ground; the bits and stirrups were of gold, and the silken bridles

adorned with pearls and precious stones. The palfreys were covered with

little silver bells, which made the most musical tinkling as they ambled

gently along. Woe to the unlucky wight, however, who lingered in the way

when he heard the tinkling of these bells!--the guards were ordered to

cut him down without mercy.

 

The cavalcade was drawing near to Granada, when it overtook, on the

banks of the river Xenil, a small body of Moorish soldiers with a convoy

of prisoners. It was too late for the soldiers to get out of the way, so

they threw themselves on their faces on the earth, ordering their

captives to do the like. Among the prisoners were the three identical

cavaliers whom the princesses had seen from the pavilion. They either

did not understand, or were too haughty to obey the order, and remained

standing and gazing upon the cavalcade as it approached.

 

The ire of the monarch was kindled at this flagrant defiance of his

orders. Drawing his cimeter, and pressing forward, he was about to deal

a left-handed blow that might have been fatal to at least one of the

gazers, when the princesses crowded round him, and implored mercy for

the prisoners; even the timid Zorahayda forgot her shyness, and became

eloquent in their behalf. Mohamed paused, with uplifted cimeter, when

the captain of the guard threw himself at his feet. “Let not your

highness,” said he, “do a deed that may cause great scandal throughout

the kingdom. These are three brave and noble Spanish knights, who have

been taken in battle, fighting like lions; they are of high birth, and

may bring great ransoms.”--“Enough!” said the king. “I will spare their

lives, but punish their audacity--let them be taken to the Vermilion

Towers, and put to hard labor.”

 

Mohamed was making one of his usual left-handed blunders. In the tumult

and agitation of this blustering scene, the veils of the three

princesses had been thrown back, and the radiance of their beauty

revealed; and in prolonging the parley, the king had given that beauty

time to have its full effect. In those days people fell in love much

more suddenly than at present, as all ancient stories make manifest: it

is not a matter of wonder, therefore, that the hearts of the three

cavaliers were completely captured; especially as gratitude was added to

their admiration; it is a little singular, however, though no less

certain, that each of them was enraptured with a several beauty. As to

the princesses, they were more than ever struck with the noble demeanor

of the captives, and cherished in their breasts all that they had heard

of their valor and noble lineage.

 

The cavalcade resumed its march; the three princesses rode pensively

along on their tinkling palfreys, now and then stealing a glance behind

in search of the Christian captives, and the latter were conducted to

their allotted prison in the Vermilion Towers.

 

The residence provided for the princesses was one of the most dainty

that fancy could devise. It was in a tower somewhat apart from the main

palace of the Alhambra, though connected with it by the wall which

encircled the whole summit of the hill. On one side it looked into the

interior of the fortress, and had, at its foot, a small garden filled

with the rarest flowers. On the other side it overlooked a deep

embowered ravine separating the grounds of the Alhambra from those of

the Generalife. The interior of the tower was divided into small fairy

apartments, beautifully ornamented in the light Arabian style,

surrounding a lofty hall, the vaulted roof of which rose almost to the

summit of the tower. The walls and the ceilings of the hall were adorned

with arabesque and fretwork, sparkling with gold and with brilliant

pencilling. In the centre of the marble pavement was an alabaster

fountain, set round with aromatic shrubs and flowers, and throwing up a

jet of water that cooled the whole edifice and had a lulling sound.

Round the hall were suspended cages of gold and silver wire, containing

singing birds of the finest plumage or sweetest note.

 

The princesses had been represented as always cheerful when in the

castle of the Salobreña; the king had expected to see them enraptured

with the Alhambra. To his surprise, however, they began to pine, and

grow melancholy, and dissatisfied with everything around them. The

flowers yielded them no fragrance, the song of the nightingale disturbed

their night’s rest, and they were out of all patience with the alabaster

fountain, with its eternal drop-drop and splash-splash, from morning

till night and from night till morning.

 

The king, who was somewhat of a testy, tyrannical disposition, took this

at first in high dudgeon; but he reflected that his daughters had

arrived at an age when the female mind expands and its desires augment.

“They are no longer children,” said he to himself, “they are women

grown, and require suitable objects to interest them.” He put in

requisition, therefore, all the dressmakers, and the jewellers, and the

artificers in gold and silver throughout the Zacatin of Granada, and the

princesses were overwhelmed with robes of silk, and tissue, and brocade,

and cashmere shawls, and necklaces of pearls and diamonds, and rings,

and bracelets, and anklets, and all manner of precious things.

 

All, however, was of no avail; the princesses continued pale and languid

in the midst of their finery, and looked like three blighted rose-buds,

drooping from one stalk. The king was at his wits’ end. He had in

general a laudable confidence in his own judgment, and never took

advice. “The whims and caprices of three marriageable damsels, however,

are sufficient,” said he, “to puzzle the shrewdest head.” So for once in

his life he called in the aid of counsel.

 

The person to whom he applied was the experienced duenna.

 

“Kadiga,” said the king, “I know you to be one of the most discreet

women in the whole world, as well as one of the most trustworthy; for

these reasons I have always continued you about the persons of my

daughters. Fathers cannot be too wary in whom they repose such

confidence; I now wish you to find out the secret malady that is preying

upon the princesses, and to devise some means of restoring them to

health and cheerfulness.”

 

Kadiga promised implicit obedience. In fact she knew more of the malady

of the princesses than they themselves. Shutting herself up with them,

however, she endeavored to insinuate herself into their confidence.

 

“My dear children, what is the reason you are so dismal and downcast in

so beautiful a place, where you have everything that heart can wish?”

 

The princesses looked vacantly round the apartment, and sighed.

 

“What more, then, would you have? Shall I get you the wonderful parrot

that talks all languages, and is the delight of Granada?”

 

“Odious!” exclaimed the princess Zayda. “A horrid, screaming bird, that

chatters words without ideas: one must be without brains to tolerate

such a pest.”

 

“Shall I send for a monkey from the rock of Gibraltar, to divert you

with his antics?”

 

“A monkey! faugh!” cried Zorayda; “the detestable mimic of man. I hate

the nauseous animal.”

 

“What say you to the famous black singer Casem, from the royal harem, in

Morocco? They say he has a voice as fine as a woman’s.”

 

“I am terrified at the sight of these black slaves,” said the delicate

Zorahayda; “besides, I have lost all relish for music.”

 

“Ah! my child, you would not say so,” replied the old woman, slyly, “had

you heard the music I heard last evening, from the three Spanish

cavaliers whom we met on our journey. But bless me, children! what is

the matter that you blush so and are in such a flutter?”

 

“Nothing, nothing, good mother; pray proceed.”

 

“Well; as I was passing by the Vermilion Towers last evening, I saw the

three cavaliers resting after their day’s labor. One was playing on the

guitar, so gracefully, and the others sang by turns; and they did it in

such style, that the very guards seemed like statues, or men enchanted.