The Alhambra 48
“In the whirl and confusion of the scene I was thrown senseless to the
earth. When I came to myself, I was lying on the brow of a hill, with
the Arabian steed standing beside me; for in falling, my arm had slipped
within the bridle, which, I presume, prevented his whisking off to Old
Castile.
“Your Excellency may easily judge of my surprise, on looking round, to
behold hedges of aloes and Indian figs and other proofs of a southern
climate, and to see a great city below me, with towers, and palaces, and
a grand cathedral.
“I descended the hill cautiously, leading my steed, for I was afraid to
mount him again, lest he should play me some slippery trick. As I
descended I met with your patrol, who let me into the secret that it was
Granada that lay before me, and that I was actually under the walls of
the Alhambra, the fortress of the redoubted Governor Manco, the terror
of all enchanted Moslems. When I heard this, I determined at once to
seek your Excellency, to inform you of all that I had seen, and to warn
you of the perils that surround and undermine you, that you may take
measures in time to guard your fortress, and the kingdom itself, from
this intestine army that lurks in the very bowels of the land.”
“And prithee, friend, you who are a veteran campaigner, and have seen so
much service,” said the governor, “how would you advise me to proceed,
in order to prevent this evil?”
“It is not for a humble private of the ranks,” said the soldier,
modestly, “to pretend to instruct a commander of your Excellency’s
sagacity, but it appears to me that your Excellency might cause all the
caves and entrances into the mountains to be walled up with solid
mason-work, so that Boabdil and his army might be completely corked up
in their subterranean habitation. If the good father, too,” added the
soldier, reverently bowing to the friar, and devoutly crossing himself,
“would consecrate the barricadoes with his blessing, and put up a few
crosses and relics and images of saints, I think they might withstand
all the power of infidel enchantments.”
“They doubtless would be of great avail,” said the friar.
The governor now placed his arm akimbo, with his hand resting on the
hilt of his toledo, fixed his eye upon the soldier, and gently wagging
his head from one side to the other,--
“So, friend,” said he, “then you really suppose I am to be gulled with
this cock-and-bull story about enchanted mountains and enchanted Moors?
Hark ye, culprit!--not another word. An old soldier you may be, but
you’ll find you have an older soldier to deal with, and one not easily
outgeneralled. Ho! guards there! put this fellow in irons.”
The demure handmaid would have put in a word in favor of the prisoner,
but the governor silenced her with a look.
As they were pinioning the soldier, one of the guards felt something of
bulk in his pocket, and drawing it forth, found a long leathern purse
that appeared to be well filled. Holding it by one corner, he turned out
the contents upon the table before the governor, and never did
freebooter’s bag make more gorgeous delivery. Out tumbled rings, and
jewels, and rosaries of pearls, and sparkling diamond crosses, and a
profusion of ancient golden coin, some of which fell jingling to the
floor, and rolled away to the uttermost parts of the chamber.
For a time the functions of justice were suspended; there was a
universal scramble after the glittering fugitives. The governor alone,
who was imbued with true Spanish pride, maintained his stately decorum,
though his eye betrayed a little anxiety until the last coin and jewel
was restored to the sack.
The friar was not so calm; his whole face glowed like a furnace, and
his eyes twinkled and flashed at sight of the rosaries and crosses.
“Sacrilegious wretch that thou art!” exclaimed he; “what church or
sanctuary hast thou been plundering of these sacred relics?”
“Neither one nor the other, holy father. If they be sacrilegious spoils,
they must have been taken, in times long past, by the infidel trooper I
have mentioned. I was just going to tell his Excellency when he
interrupted me, that, on taking possession of the trooper’s horse, I
unhooked a leathern sack which hung at the saddle-bow, and which I
presume contained the plunder of his campaignings in days of old, when
the Moors overran the country.”
“Mighty well; at present you will make up your mind to take up your
quarters in a chamber of the Vermilion Tower, which, though not under a
magic spell, will hold you as safe as any cave of your enchanted Moors.”
“Your Excellency will do as you think proper,” said the prisoner,
coolly. “I shall be thankful to your Excellency for any accommodation in
the fortress. A soldier who has been in the wars, as your Excellency
well knows, is not particular about his lodgings. Provided I have a snug
dungeon and regular rations, I shall manage to make myself comfortable.
I would only entreat that while your Excellency is so careful about me,
you would have an eye to your fortress, and think on the hint I dropped
about stopping up the entrances to the mountain.”
Here ended the scene. The prisoner was conducted to a strong dungeon in
the Vermilion Tower, the Arabian steed was led to his Excellency’s
stable, and the trooper’s sack was deposited in his Excellency’s strong
box. To the latter, it is true, the friar made some demur, questioning
whether the sacred relics, which were evidently sacrilegious spoils,
should not be placed in custody of the church; but as the governor was
peremptory on the subject, and was absolute lord in the Alhambra, the
friar discreetly dropped the discussion, but determined to convey
intelligence of the fact to the church dignitaries in Granada.
To explain these prompt and rigid measures on the part of old Governor
Manco, it is proper to observe, that about this time the Alpuxarra
mountains in the neighborhood of Granada were terribly infested by a
gang of robbers, under the command of a daring chief named Manuel
Borasco, who were accustomed to prowl about the country, and even to
enter the city in various disguises, to gain intelligence of the
departure of convoys of merchandise, or travellers with well-lined
purses, whom they took care to waylay in distant and solitary passes of
the road. These repeated and daring outrages had awakened the attention
of government, and the commanders of the various posts had received
instructions to be on the alert, and to take up all suspicious
stragglers. Governor Manco was particularly zealous in consequence of
the various stigmas that had been cast upon his fortress, and he now
doubted not he had entrapped some formidable desperado of this gang.
In the mean time the story took wind, and became the talk, not merely of
the fortress, but of the whole city of Granada. It was said that the
noted robber Manuel Borasco, the terror of the Alpuxarras, had fallen
into the clutches of old Governor Manco, and been cooped up by him in a
dungeon of the Vermilion Towers; and every one who had been robbed by
him flocked to recognize the marauder. The Vermilion Towers, as is well
known, stand apart from the Alhambra on a sister hill, separated from
the main fortress by the ravine down which passes the main avenue. There
were no outer walls, but a sentinel patrolled before the tower. The
window of the chamber in which the soldier was confined was strongly
grated, and looked upon a small esplanade. Here the good folks of
Granada repaired to gaze at him, as they would at a laughing hyena,
grinning through the cage of a menagerie. Nobody, however, recognized
him for Manuel Borasco, for that terrible robber was noted for a
ferocious physiognomy, and had by no means the good-humored squint of
the prisoner. Visitors came not merely from the city, but from all parts
of the country; but nobody knew him, and there began to be doubts in the
minds of the common people whether there might not be some truth in his
story. That Boabdil and his army were shut up in the mountain, was an
old tradition which many of the ancient inhabitants had heard from their
fathers. Numbers went up to the Mountain of the Sun, or rather of St.
Elena, in search of the cave mentioned by the soldier; and saw and
peeped into the deep dark pit, descending, no one knows how far, into
the mountain, and which remains there to this day--the fabled entrance
to the subterranean abode of Boabdil.
By degrees the soldier became popular with the common people. A
freebooter of the mountains is by no means the opprobrious character in
Spain that a robber is in any other country: on the contrary, he is a
kind of chivalrous personage in the eyes of the lower classes. There is
always a disposition, also, to cavil at the conduct of those in command;
and many began to murmur at the high-handed measures of old Governor
Manco, and to look upon the prisoner in the light of a martyr.
The soldier, moreover, was a merry, waggish fellow, that had a joke for
every one who came near his window, and a soft speech for every female.
He had procured an old guitar also, and would sit by his window and sing
ballads and love-ditties to the delight of the women of the
neighborhood, who would assemble on the esplanade in the evening and
dance boleros to his music. Having trimmed off his rough beard, his
sunburnt face found favor in the eyes of the fair, and the demure
handmaid of the governor declared that his squint was perfectly
irresistible. This kind-hearted damsel had from the first evinced a deep
sympathy in his fortunes, and having in vain tried to mollify the
governor, had set to work privately to mitigate the rigor of his
dispensations. Every day she brought the prisoner some crumbs of comfort
which had fallen from the governor’s table, or been abstracted from his
larder, together with, now and then, a consoling bottle of choice Val de
Peñas, or rich Malaga.
While this petty treason was going on in the very centre of the old
governor’s citadel, a storm of open war was brewing up among his
external foes. The circumstance of a bag of gold and jewels having been
found upon the person of the supposed robber, had been reported, with
many exaggerations, in Granada. A question of territorial jurisdiction
was immediately started by the governor’s inveterate rival, the
captain-general. He insisted that the prisoner had been captured without
the precincts of the Alhambra, and within the rules of his authority. He
demanded his body therefore, and the _spolia opima_ taken with him. Due
information having been carried likewise by the friar to the grand
inquisitor of the crosses and rosaries, and other relics contained in
the bag, he claimed the culprit as having been guilty of sacrilege, and
insisted that his plunder was due to the church, and his body to the
next _auto-da-fe_. The feuds ran high; the governor was furious, and
swore, rather than surrender his captive, he would hang him up within
the Alhambra, as a spy caught within the purlieus of the fortress.
The captain-general threatened to send a body of soldiers to transfer
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