f,--and famine is
a foe all our valour cannot resist. This dervise--who is he? a stranger,
not of our race and blood. But this morning I found him without the
walls, not far from the Spaniard's camp."

"Ha!" cried the king, quickly, "and what said he?"

"Little, but in hints; sheltering himself, by loose hints, under thy
name."

"He! what dared he own?--Muza, what were those hints?"

The Moor here recounted the interview with Almamen, his detention, his
inactivity in the battle, and his subsequent capture by the Spaniards.
The king listened attentively, and regained his composure.

"It is a strange and awful man," said he after a pause. "Guards and
chains will not detain him. Ere long he will return. But thou, at least,
Muza, are henceforth free, alike from the suspicion of the living
and the warnings of the dead. No, my friend," continued Boabdil, with
generous warmth, "it is better to lose a crown, to lose life itself,
than confidence in a heart like thine. Come, let us inspect this magic
tablet; perchance--and how my heart bounds as I utter the hope!--the
hour may have arrived."

CHAPTER IV. A FULLER VIEW OF THE CHARACTER OF BOABDIL.--MUZA IN THE GARDENS OF HIS
BELOVED.

Muza Ben Abil Gazan returned from his visit to Boabdil with a thoughtful
and depressed spirit. His arguments had failed to induce the king to
disdain the command of the magic dial, which still forbade him to
arm against the invaders; and although the royal favour was no longer
withdrawn from himself, the Moor felt that such favour hung upon a
capricious and uncertain tenure so long as his sovereign was the slave
of superstition or imposture. But that noble warrior, whose character
the adversity of his country had singularly exalted and refined, even
while increasing its natural fierceness, thought little of himself in
comparison with the evils and misfortunes which the king's continued
irresolution must bring upon Granada.

"So brave, and yet so weak," thought he; "so weak, and yet so obstinate;
so wise a reasoner, yet so credulous a dupe! Unhappy Boabdil! the stars,
indeed, seem to fight against thee, and their influences at thy birth
marred all thy gifts and virtues with counteracting infirmity and
error."

Muza,--more perhaps than any subject in Granada,--did justice to the
real character of the king; but even he was unable to penetrate all its
complicated and latent mysteries. Boabdil el Chico was no ordinary man;
his affections