f
banished sultans prayed to return after death to the Alhambra, in the
bronze and gold, rose and purple forms of these fish of the Alberca; and
now I half believed the story. Where--since Mahomet grants no heaven to
women--could they be happier than here? Floating ever under their roof of
emerald, did they think themselves more fortunate than their husbands,
lovers, and brothers permitted to rest within the Alhambra walls in the
guise of martens wailing shrilly for days that might not come again?

Dreaming, I passed into the Court of Lions, where I and the twelve quaint,
stone guardians of the place stared at one another across a few feet of
marble pavement that measured centuries. Each prim beast, beautiful
because of his crude hideousness differing from his fellows; each with a
different story to tell if he would. Which one remembered that night when
the brave Abencerrages faced death, there in the hall to the right, where
the fountain kept ominous stains of brown? Which had the seeing eye in
these fallen times, to watch when the ghost of those noble Moors passed by
silent and sad in the moonlight? Upon which had blood-drops spattered when
the boy princes died for jealous Fatima's pleasure? Which had known the
touch of Morayma's little hand or lovely Galiana's?

I asked the questions; yet the deep answering silence of the court, and of
all this hidden, secret, fairy palace seemed to say so much that it was
not like silence, but reserve.

"The Alhambra is music and colour and knowledge," I said to the lions.
"When I am gone I shall shut my eyes and hear as well as see it; hear the
magic music of the silence, played on silver lutes of Moors, and tinkling
fountains, a siren's song to draw me back again; and I shall know and feel
things which I've never been able to think out quite clearly before."

Would Monica come here? I wondered. No face more lovely than hers had ever
looked down from those latticed windows supported by pillars delicate as a
child's white arm. If I could but see her face now! Not seeing it, I knew
that no place, however beautiful, could be perfect for me. Shadows of
sorrow, of separation, would stand out the blacker against the sunlit,
jewelled walls of the fairy palace; and even happiness must sing in minor
notes here, lest it strike out a discord in the tragic poem of the
Alhambra. No wonder, in losing their crown jewel, the Moors lost hope, and
with it all the art and science which had set them