“From a walk the horse soon passed to a trot,
from a trot to a gallop, and from a gallop to a harum
scarum scamper. It seemed as if rocks, trees,
houses, every thing, flew hurry scurry behind us.

“`What town is this?' said I.

“`Segovia,' said he; and before the word was
out of his mouth, the towers of Segovia were out
of sight. We swept up the Guadarama mountains,
and down by the Escurial; and we skirted
the walls of Madrid, and we scoured away across
the plains of La Mancha. In this way we went
up hill and down dale, by towers and cities, all
buried in deep sleep, and across mountains, and
plains, and rivers, just glimmering in the star-light.

“To make a long story short, and not to fatigue
your excellency, the trooper suddenly pulled up
on the side of a mountain. `Here we are,' said
he, `at the end of our journey.' I looked about,
but could see no signs of habitation; nothing but
the mouth of a cavern. While I looked I saw
multitudes of people in Moorish dresses, some on
horseback, some on foot, arriving as if borne by
the wind from all points of the compass, and hurrying
into the mouth of the cavern like bees into
a hive. Before I could ask a question the trooper
struck his long Moorish spurs into the horse's

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

flanks, and dashed in with the throng. We passed
along a steep winding way, that descended into
the very bowels of the mountain. As we pushed
on, a light began to glimmer up, by little and
little, like the first glimmerings of day, but what
caused it I could not discern. It grew stronger
and stronger, and enabled me to see every thing
around. I now noticed, as we passed along, great
caverns, opening to the right and left, like
halls in an arsenal. In some there were shields,
and helmets, and cuirasses, and lances, and cimeters,
hanging against the walls; in others there
were great heaps of warlike munitions, and camp
equipage lying upon the ground.

“It would have done your excellency's heart
good, being an old soldier, to have seen such
grand provision for war. Then, in other caverns,
there were long rows of horsemen armed to
the teeth, with lances raised and banners unfurled,
all ready for the field; but they all sat
motionless in their saddles like so many statues.
In other halls were warriors sleeping on the ground
beside their horses, and foot-soldiers in groups
ready to fall into the ranks. All were in old-fashioned
Moorish dresses and armour.

“Well, your excellency, to cut a long story
short, we at length entered an immense cavern, or

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

I may say palace, of grotto work, the walls of
which seemed to be veined with gold and silver,
and to sparkle with diamonds and sapphires and
all kinds of precious stones. At the upper end sat
a Moorish king on a golden throne, with his nobles
on each side, and a guard of African blacks with
drawn cimeters. All the crowd that continued
to flock in, and amounted to thousands and thousands,
passed one by one before his throne, each
paying homage as he passed. Some of the multitude
were dressed in magnificent robes, without
stain or blemish and sparkling with jewels; others
in burnished and enamelled armour; while others
were in mouldered and mildewed garments, and in
armour all battered and dented and covered with
rust.

“I had hitherto held my tongue, for your excellency
well knows it is not for a soldier to ask many
questions when on duty, but I could keep silent no
longer.

“`Pr'ythee, comrade,' said I, `what is the meaning
of all this?'

“`This,' said the trooper, `is a great and fearful
mystery. Know, O Christian, that you see
before you the court and army of Boabdil the last
king of Granada.'

“`What is this you tell me?' cried I. `Boabdil

[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]

and his court were exiled from the land hundreds
of years agone, and all died in Africa.'

“`So it is recorded in your lying chronicles,'
replied the Moor, `but know that Boabdil and the
warriors who made the last struggle for Granada
were all shut up in the mountain by powerful enchantment.
As for the king and army that
marched forth from Granada at the time of the
surrender, they were a mere phantom train, of
spirits and demons permitted to assume those
shapes to deceive the Christian sovereigns. And
furthermore let me tell you, friend, that all Spain
is a country under the power of enchantment.
There is not a mountain cave, not a lonely watch-tower
in the plains, nor ruined castle on the hills,
but has some spell-bound warriors sleeping from
age to age within its vaults, until the sins are expiated
for which Allah permitted the dominion
to pass for a time out of the hands of the faithful.
Once every year, on the eve of St. John, they are
released from enchantment, from sunset to sunrise,
and permitted to repair here to pay homage to
their sovereign! and the crowds which you beheld
swarming into the cavern are Moslem warriors
from their haunts in all parts of Spain. For
my own part, you saw the ruined tower of the
bridge in Old Castile, where I have now wintered

[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]

and summered for many hundred years, and where
I must be back again by daybreak. As to the
battalions of horse and foot which you beheld draw
up in array in the neighbouring caverns, they are
the spell-bound warriors of Granada. It is written
in the book of fate, that when the enchantment is
broken, Boabdil will descend from the mountain
at the head of this army, resume his throne in the
Alhambra and his sway of Granada, and gathering
together the enchanted warriors, from all parts of
Spain, will reconquer the Peninsula and restore it
to Moslem rule.'

“`And when shall this happen?' said I.

“`Allah alone knows: we had hoped the day
of deliverance was at hand; but there reigns at
present a vigilant governor in the Alhambra, a
staunch old soldier, well known as governor
Manco. While such a warrior holds command
of the very outpost, and stands ready to check
the first irruption from the mountain, I fear Boabdil
and his soldiery must be content to rest upon
their arms.”'

Here the governor raised himself somewhat
perpendicularly, adjusted his sword, and twirled
up his mustachios.

“To make a long story short, and not to fatigue
your excellency, the trooper, having given me this
account, dismounted from his steed.

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

“`Tarry here,' said he, `and guard my steed
while I go and bow the knee to Boabdil.' So
saying, he strode away among the throng that
pressed forward to the throne.

“`What's to be done?' thought I, when thus
left to myself; `shall I wait here until this infidel
returns to whisk me off on his goblin steed, the
Lord knows where; or shall I make the most of
my time and beat a retreat from this hobgoblin
community?' A soldier's mind is soon made up,
as your excellency well knows. As to the horse,
he belonged to an avowed enemy of the faith and
the realm, and was a fair prize according to the
rules of war. So hoisting myself from the crupper
into the saddle, I turned the reins, struck the
Moorish stirrups into the sides of the steed, and
put him to make the best of his way out of the
passage by which he had entered. As we scoured
by the halls where the Moslem horsemen sat in
motionless battalions, I thought I heard the clang
of armour and a hollow murmur of voices. I
gave the steed another taste of the stirrups and
doubled my speed. There was now a sound
behind me like a rushing blast; I heard the clatter
of a thousand hoofs; a countless throng overtook
me. I was borne along in the press, and hurled
forth from the mouth of the cavern, while

[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]

thousands of shadowy forms were swept off in every
direction by the four winds of heaven.

“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 slipt 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

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

itself, from this intestine army that lurks in the
very bowels of the land.”

“And pr'ythee, 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 an 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 mountain 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 reliques 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

[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]

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 favour 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

[figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]

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

[figure description] Page 159.[end figure description]

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 neighbourhood of Granada were
terribly infested by a gang of robbers, under the
command of a daring chief named Manuel Borasco,

[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]

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 their 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 that 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 tower; and every one
who had been robbed by him flocked to recognise
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

[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]

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, recognised
him for Manuel Borasco, for that terrible
robber was noted for a ferocious physiognomy, and
had by no means the good-humoured squint of the
prisoner. Visiters 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

[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]

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
neighbourhood, who would assemble on the esplanade
in the evenings and dance boleros to his
music. Having trimmed off his rough beard, his
sunburnt face found favour 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 rigour 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

[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]

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 reliques 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 the prisoner from the

[figure description] Page 164.[end figure description]

vermilion tower to the city. The grand inquisitor
was equally bent upon despatching a number of
the familiars of the Holy Office. Word was
brought late at night to the governor of these
machinations. “Let them come,” said he,
“they'll find me beforehand with them; he must
rise bright and early who would take in an old
soldier.” He accordingly issued orders to have
the prisoner removed, at daybreak, to the donjon
keep within the walls of the Alhambra. “And
d'ye hear, child,” said he to his demure handmaid,
“tap at my door, and wake me before cockcrowing,
that I may see to the matter myself.”

The day dawned, the cock crowed, but nobody
tapped at the door of the governor. The sun
rose high above the mountain-tops, and glittered
in at his casement, ere the governor was wakened
from his morning dreams by his veteran corporal,
who stood before him with terror stamped upon
his iron visage.

“He's off! he's gone!” cried the corporal,
gasping for breath.

“Who's off—who's gone?”

“The soldier—the robber—the devil for aught
I know; his dungeon is empty, but the door
locked: no one knows how he has escaped out
of it.”

[figure description] Page 165.[end figure description]

“Who saw him last?”

“Your handmaid, she brought him his supper.”

“Let her be called instantly.”

Here was new matter of confusion. The chamber
of the demure damsel was likewise empty, her
bed had not been slept in: she had doubtless gone
off with the culprit, as she had appeared, for some
days past, to have frequent conversations with
him.

This was wounding the old governor in a
tender part, but he had scarce time to wince at
it, when new misfortunes broke upon his view.
On going into his cabinet he found his strong box
open, the leather purse of the trooper abstracted,
and with it, a couple of corpulent bags of doubloons.

But how, and which way had the fugitives
escaped? An old peasant who lived in a cottage
by the road-side, leading up into the Sierra, declared
that he had heard the tramp of a powerful
steed just before daybreak, passing up into the
mountains. He had looked out at his casement,
and could just distinguish a horseman, with a
female seated before him.

“Search the stables!” cried governor Manco.
The stables were searched; all the horses were

[figure description] Page 166.[end figure description]

in their stalls, excepting the Arabian steed. In
his place was a stout cudgel tied to the manger,
and on it a label bearing these words, “A gift to
Governor Manco, from an Old Soldier.”

p226-394

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