ments, protected his breast; but the
loose gown--a sort of tartan, which descended below the cuirass--was
rent and tattered, and his feet bare; in his girdle was a short curved
cimiter, a knife or dagger, and a parchment roll, clasped and bound with
iron.

As the horseman gazed at this abrupt intruder on the solitude, his
frame quivered with emotion; and, raising himself to his full height, he
called aloud, "Fiend or santon--whatsoever thou art--what seekest thou
in these lonely places, far from the king thy counsels deluded, and the
city betrayed by thy false prophecies and unhallowed charms?"

"Ha!" cried Almamen, for it was indeed the Israelite; "by thy black
charger, and the tone of thy haughty voice, I know the hero of Granada.
Rather, Muza Ben Abil Gazan, why art thou absent from the last hold of
the Moorish empire?"

"Dost thou pretend to read the future, and art thou blind to the
present? Granada has capitulated to the Spaniard. Alone I have left a
land of slaves, and shall seek, in our ancestral Africa, some spot where
the footstep of the misbeliever hath not trodden."

"The fate of one bigotry is, then, sealed," said Almamen, gloomily; "but
that which succeeds it is yet more dark."

"Dog!" cried Muza, couching his lance, "what art thou that thus
blasphemest?"

"A Jew!" replied Almamen, in a voice of thunder, and drawing his
cimiter: "a despised and despising Jew! Ask you more? I am the son of
a race of kings. I was the worst enemy of the Moors till I found the
Nazarene more hateful than the Moslem; and then even Muza himself was
not their more renowned champion. Come on, if thou wilt--man to man: I
defy thee"

"No, no," muttered Muza, sinking his lance; "thy mail is rusted with
the blood of the Spaniard, and this arm cannot smite the slayer of the
Christian. Part we in peace."

"Hold, prince!" said Almamen, in an altered voice: "is thy country the
sole thing dear to thee? Has the smile of woman never stolen beneath
thine armour? Has thy heart never beat for softer meetings than the
encounter of a foe?"

"Am I human, and a Moor?" returned Muza. "For once you divine aright;
and, could thy spells bestow on these eyes but one more sight of the
last treasure left to me on earth, I should be as credulous of thy
sorcery as Boabdil."

"Thou lovest her still, then--this Leila?"

"Dark necromancer, hast thou read my secret? and knowest thou the name
of my beloved one? Ah! let me believe thee indeed wise,