e them no ambition but that of avarice," replied Almamen;
"and as the plant will crook and distort its trunk, to raise its
head through every obstacle to the sun, so the mind of man twists and
perverts itself, if legitimate openings are denied it, to find its
natural element in the gale of power, or the sunshine of esteem. These
Hebrews were not traffickers and misers in their own sacred land when
they routed your ancestors, the Arab armies of old; and gnawed the flesh
from their bones in famine, rather than yield a weaker city than Granada
to a mightier force than the holiday lords of Spain. Let this pass. My
lord rejects the belief in the agencies of the angels; doth he still
retain belief in the wisdom of mortal men?"

"Yes!" returned Boabdil, quickly; "for of the one I know nought; of
the other, mine own senses can be the judge. Almamen, my fiery kinsman,
Muza, hath this evening been with me. He hath urged me to reject the
fears of my people, which chain my panting spirit within these walls; he
hath urged me to gird on yonder shield and cimiter, and to appear in the
Vivarrambla, at the head of the nobles of Granada. My heart leaps high
at the thought! and if I cannot live, at least I will die--a king!"

"It is nobly spoken," said Almamen, coldly.

"You approve, then, my design?"

"The friends of the king cannot approve the ambition of the king to
die."

"Ha!" said Boabdil, in an altered voice, "thou thinkest, then, that I am
doomed to perish in this struggle?"

"As the hour shall be chosen, wilt thou fall or triumph."

"And that hour?"

"Is not yet come."

"Dost thou read the hour in the stars?"

"Let Moorish seers cultivate that frantic credulity: thy servant sees
but in the stars worlds mightier than this little earth, whose light
would neither wane nor wink, if earth itself were swept from the
infinities of space."

"Mysterious man!" said Boabdil; "whence, then, is thy power?--whence thy
knowledge of the future?"

Almamen approached the king, as he now stood by the open balcony.

"Behold!" said he, pointing to the waters of the Darro--"yonder stream
is of an element in which man cannot live nor breathe: above, in the
thin and impalpable air, our steps cannot find a footing, the armies of
all earth cannot build an empire. And yet, by the exercise of a little
art, the fishes and the birds, the inhabitants of the air and the water,
minister to our most humble wants, the most common of our enjoyments;