e, 'my couch
for three hundred years.' The bewildered student tried to force a
joke. 'By the blessed St. Anthony,' said he, 'but you must have
slept soundly, considering the hardness of your couch.'

"'On the contrary, sleep has been a stranger to these eyes;
incessant watchfulness has been my doom. Listen to my lot. I was
one of the royal guards of Ferdinand and Isabella; but was taken
prisoner by the Moors in one of their sorties, and confined a
captive in this tower. When preparations were made to surrender the
fortress to the Christian sovereigns, I was prevailed upon by an
alfaqui, a Moorish priest, to aid him in secreting some of the
treasures of Boabdil in this vault. I was justly punished for my
fault. The alfaqui was an African necromancer, and by his infernal
arts cast a spell upon me--to guard his treasures. Something must
have happened to him, for he never returned, and here have I
remained ever since, buried alive. Years and years have rolled
away; earthquakes have shaken this hill; I have heard stone by stone
of the tower above tumbling to the ground, in the natural operation
of time; but the spell-bound walls of this vault set both time and
earthquakes at defiance.

"'Once every hundred years, on the festival of St. John, the
enchantment ceases to have thorough sway; I am permitted to go forth
and post myself upon the bridge of the Darro, where you met me,
waiting until some one shall arrive who may have power to break this
magic spell. I have hitherto mounted guard there in vain. I walk
as in a cloud, concealed from mortal sight. You are the first to
accost me for now three hundred years. I behold the reason. I see
on your finger the seal-ring of Solomon the Wise, which is proof
against all enchantment. With you it remains to deliver me from
this awful dungeon, or to leave me to keep guard here for another
hundred years.'

"The student listened to this tale in mute wonderment. He had heard
many tales of treasures shut up under strong enchantment in the
vaults of the Alhambra, but had treated them as fables. He now felt
the value of the seal-ring, which had, in a manner, been given to
him by St. Cyprian. Still, though armed by so potent a talisman, it
was an awful thing to find himself tete-a-tete in such a place with
an