While Alfonzo was admiring the richness
of the apparel, and the wondrous
beauty of the jewels which adorned the
wounded Infidel, Gaspar, his father, sat
on the opposite couch gazing moodily
and silently upon the pale face of their
unconscious guest. At length he spoke,
as he saw Alfonzo examine with attention
a jeweled bracelet that clasped the
left wrist of the Infidel:

`This tinsel we have to pay for, boy.
That red ruby is made of the best blood
of Spain. That diamond is made of the
congealed tears of the daughters of the
land who fill the Infidel's bosom. These
silken vestments are woven from the
heart's fibres of the best men in Spain.
What the man has on is not his, but thine
and mine.

This was said sternly, and with a countenance
darkly foreboding the purpose
that the goatherd was forming in his
soul. Alfonzo fixed upon him a keen
glance. He read his father's thoughts
and feelings, for his own bosom sympathized
in them. He felt that his words
were true words; that the glory of the
Moslem was the degradation of Spain.
But he could not enter into his father's
stern resolve to desecrate the hospitality
of the roof beneath which, in his arms,
he had brought the youthful Saracen, at
the command of the holy hermit.

`Father, you say what no man in
Spain can gainsay. But this is no time
to talk of such things. This Infidel and
all he possesses is sacred.

`Alfonzo, I am a poor goatherd. I live
on coarse fare, I wear coarse garments;
and this poor cabin is my only home.
But before the Moor came my father was
a noble, of proud Gothic and Roman lineage.
He fared sumptuously, he wore
purple and dwelt in a palace. All this
before the Moor came. I am made poor
through the Infidel. My father's palace
in Cordova is now the Seraglio of a turbaned
Emir. My father's head fell beneath
the scymetar of the conqueror
Taric. I alone live an exile in the Sierras,
remembering the past greatness and

[figure description] Page 013.[end figure description]

present ignominy of my house and name.
And this man who lies here, and his, did
it.'

`He is not twenty yet, father, and it is
twenty years since Taric at the battle of
Xeres overthrew the Christian power and
made Cordova the Saracen capital. At
least this young man is innocent.'

`Art thou a Moor, that thou should'st
speak one word in behalf of one of them?'
cried Gaspar, with angry vehemence.
`If he was not one of the conquerors of
the land he is one of its dwellers and one
of our masters. At this moment thou
seest that he has upon his person wealth
for a noble. It is not his. The Moors
brought nothing into Spain but their
scymetars. Yet they have cities and
morgues, and slaves, and gold and silver,
and wear silks and jewels, and the Moslem
court of Cordova outvies in regal
splendour the court of the Gaul or the
Roman Emperor! All this magnificence
hath been coined out of Spanish hearts.
I say this Moor's jewels are mine. I
will tear them from him, boy, and send
him forth to get more as he got these,
by robbing and rapine. I will be a goat-herd
no longer and crouch here in fear
to show my head in the valley for fear
of a Saracen scymetar. I will go to
Vence or Rome and live their like a noble
as my fathers were.'

`The good father Godfrey hath given
him to me and thee in sacred charge. I
would not touch a hair of his head. Nor,
father, shall you so wrong yourself as to
harm him!'

`Dost thou menace me?' cried Gaspar,
laying his hand upon the haft of his knife.

`No, father. But I would not have
it said in the hamlet by our neighbours
that the hermit Godfrey brought a wounded
Moor to thy roof and bade thee take
charge of him till he got well, and that
thou did'st basely rob him. The honest
goatherds would cry `shame!'

`With this Moor's gold and jewels I
should ere many days be beyond the
voices of my neighbours and indifferent
to their scorn. Say no more, boy; I will
take his jewels from him ere he wakes to
defend them.'

`Yes, father, that is right. Go to it
like a coward, as becomes the deed you
would do. Be careful that he wakes not
to scare thee away. I did not believe
the best of gold would have made thee
forget thy honesty as a man, and thy
honour as a Spaniard, to say nothing of
thy duty as a host.'

`Do you mock me? I swear to thee,
boy, that I will not let this Moor go forth
as rich as he came. It is a merit to rob
an infidel. It is not robbery, but taking
back that which is our own.'

`Hear me, father,' said Alfonzo, who
saw him stretch forth his hand rudely to
unclasp the dazzling bracelet from his
arm. `You are a brave man. You have
slain in deadliest struggle three score and
ten wolves, as the notches on thy boar-spear
show to all who will count them.
Now wouldst thou by one act of robbery,
the robbery of a wounded and sleeping
foe, undo all thou hast done, and proclaim
thyself a coward.'

`I am no coward, boy.'

`Then show it by waiting till the Infidel
is restored by father Godfrey's potions
to strength and health. Then,
ere he departs, tell him what thou wert
tempted to do while he lay asleep in thy
power, and say that you will now give
him a chance to defend his property, for
you mean to try and win it of him in fair
battle as becomes a brave man.'

`I will do it; by the mass. I will
wait, boy,' responded the stout goatherd,
drawing back his hand from the tempting
bracelet. I would rather have them that
way, than meanly to rob him. Thank
thee, boy, for this hint. His jewels are
mine as certainly as if I took them now;
for he must needs he a strong man who
can defeat Gaspar, the wolf-killer.'

And as he thus spoke he elevated his
broad, herculean chest and gazed with
complacency upon his sinewy bare arms
as he moved them up and down with
athletic pride in their muscular power.

Alfonzo looked gratified that he had
succeeded by his knowledge of his father's
character, in saving the sleeping
Moor from being plundered in their hut.
There was in the spirit of Alfonzo a vein
of chivalric feeling that elevated him far
above his condition; and though he loved
not the tyrant and oppressor of the land,
he could be generous and superior to
hostility or revenge in circumstances

[figure description] Page 014.[end figure description]

which appealed like the present, to the
loftier sentiments of his breast.

It was with pleasure he saw the change
in the manner of Gaspar, who putting up
his formidable knife, looked once more
upon his guest, not with plans of robbery,
but with impatient wishes for his speedy
recovery. Alfonzo saw that the Moor
had nothing more to fear at present from
his father, and rising, he said,

`I will be in by and by and watch
with him, till dawn. I leave you, father,
to sit up with him till I come back.'

`I will do it. You need not fear me,
Alfonzo. I am as sure of him when he
gets well, as I should be now. Where
do you go?'

`Not far. I will be back in two hours.
If he wakes, administer what I have mixed
in the cup!'

`I will do just as you say. I hope it
is a magic drink that will put him on his
feet in five minutes after as well as ever.
By the mass it would not be many
seconds before we should be at it, Christian
to Moor.'

Alfonzo threw on his bernish, a coarse
brown mantle, like a blanket, about his
manly form, and gathering it about his
waist with a wide belt, to which hung a
wolf's sheathe knife, took his mountain
staff and went out.

The night was gloriously bright, with
burning stars in the deep azure of heaven,
rivaling the lustre of the pure moon,
which floated like a transparent shell
upon a blue sea. The low winds breathed
gently among the lime and the date
trees, and rustled pleasantly in the pendant
foliage of the banana. The mountain
crests rose skyward on either hand,
as if supporting a group of the fleecelike
clouds that hung above them and
almost seemed reposing upon them.—
The roar of the sparkling brook at his
feet filled the defile with a constant song
that the mountains loved always to hear.

The young gazelle-tender walked along
the narrow road that led past the few huts
that composed the secluded hamlet, and
coming to the descent along the side of
the water-falls, bounded down the declivity
almost with the speed of the leaping
cataracts that shone in the moonbeams
like ribbons of silver unrolled
down the dark face of tho cliff.

He was now upon the plain in a grove
of cork-trees whose heavy shadows left
the path-way which wound beneath their
huge trunks, in impenetrable darkness.
But, at intervals, glimpses of moonlight
falling upon the sward through an open
space between the branches, lighted him
along like beacons gleaming in the deep
forest gloom. He pursued his way, not
in the direction of the city of Cordova,
but following the base of the Sierra,
which constantly frowned above his path.
At length, after going about a mile, he
came suddenly upon a spur of the mountain,
and passing round it, he entered a
gorge similar to that in which the hamlet
stood. He ascended a few rods a grassy
but steep path, when getting above the
top of the forest trees which he had
hitherto been traversing, and which spread
before him like a dark green lake slightly
agitated by the breeze, he looked up and
rested his eyes for an instant upon a
tower a few feet above him and overhanging
the path. It was a square bastion,
with a round turret or tower at the
outer angle, and standing on the very
verge of the mountain, and at the edge
of the defile, like a sentry to protect its
passes.

It was, however, in ruins, like nearly
every strong hold which had once belonged
to the Christian inhabitants of the fair
valley of Andalusia; for that it was a
Spanish, and not a Moorish fortress, was
plain from its age and peculiar construction.
The tower had lost a portion of
its battlement, and the bastion had been
deprived of several feet of its wall at the
southern angle. Over it towered two
lofty sycamores, like protecting genii.
The moonlight fell upon it and exposed
both its strength and state of ruin.

`So has the curse of the infidel blighted
all that is fair in Spain,' said Alfonzo,
as he let his eyes linger upon it as it towered
over the forest, and looked yet like
a strong hold of power even in its impotency.

All about the tower was silent and
peaceful. The thunder of battle that
had once rolled round its base was hushed!
The cry of the warrior, the shriek
of the fallen, the clangour of steel meeting
steel, the roar of warlike engines
were silenced. Repose and loneliness

[figure description] Page 015.[end figure description]

and peace seemed to have made it their
home.

Alfozo, reflecting in this strain, began
to ascend a flight of hewn steps that led
to the portal of the tower. He passed
around the angle of the ruined bastion,
and came all at once upon a neat whitewashed
kasah, or vine-dresser's cottage,
sheltered by the wall of the tower on one
side, and by the face of the cliff on the
other. It was before its door that the
two sycamores grew. The moonlight
fell full and pleasantly upon the small
green plat adorned with roses and blossoming
flowers, before the door, and revealed
a spot of loveliness rarely found
in such a remote and secluded region.

The cottage or casah was built of
stone from the bastion, in a neat manner,
was flat-roofed, and its spotless
white walls were only seen through the
interstices of vines that clambered all
over it, so profusely that it resembled a
bower. Before the door was a bench,
and under each of the two windows was
a bench, on which humble vases of
flowers were placed, half veiling the
casement. The little space between the
door and the wall was about forty feet
wide, green as soft verdure could make
it, and containing little plots of mountain
plants and the two gigantic sycamores.
Back of the cottage rose sublimely into
the starry heavens the wooded face of
the Sierra. To the south, through an
opening between the mountain and the
bastion, was a glimpse over forest, garden,
plain, and fertile meadow, of the
white minarets of Cordova, beyond which
remoter far, against the margin, like
blue-tinted shadows, the faintly-seen
masses of the Sierra Nevada.

Alfonzo lingered an instant as he came
upon this little paradise, as if fearing to
disturb its peaceful beauty by his presence.
He then, with his finger on his
lip, walked softly forward, and was
about to approach the window nearest to
him, when a huge dog bounded from the
shadow of the building, and without a
voice, other than a low, fierce growl,
leaped towards him, as if he would rend
him. But, ere he made the second
bound, he crouched at his feet and
whined recognition. Alfonzo patted the
shaggy beast upon his head and then tap
ped at the window, by the side of which
hung, like trophies, rather than for
present use, an old shield and two or
three sheathed yatagans, belonging to
the owner of the cottage.

He tapped a second time, and then,
putting aside the trellis, looked in. The
moon-beams that he admitted showed
a small neat chamber, with a spotless
couch, but no occupant. Voices fell
upon his ear from an inner room. He
was about to leave the window to enter
by the door, when a hand was lightly
laid upon his shoulder, and a musical
voice pronounced gladly, but in a low
tone, his name.