"'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 enchanted soldier, who, according to the laws of nature,
ought to have been quietly in his grave for nearly three centuries.

"A personage of this kind, however, was quite out of the ordinary
run, and n