curse of
circumstance had humbled, but reconciled him to the dust. He had the
crawl of the reptile,--he had, also, its poison and its fangs.

CHAPTER VI. THE LION IN THE NET

IT was the next night, not long before daybreak, that the King of
Granada abruptly summoned to his council Jusef, his vizier. The old man
found Boabdil in great disorder and excitement; but he almost deemed
his sovereign mad, when he received from him the order to seize upon the
person of Muza Ben Abil Gazan, and to lodge him in the strongest dungeon
of the Vermilion Tower. Presuming upon Boabdil's natural mildness, the
vizier ventured to remonstrate,--to suggest the danger of laying violent
hands upon a chief so beloved,--and to inquire what cause should be
assigned for the outrage.

The veins swelled like cords upon Boabdil's brow, as he listened to the
vizier; and his answer was short and peremptory.

"Am I yet a king, that I should fear a subject, or excuse my will? Thou
hast my orders; there are my signet and the firman: obedience or the
bow-string!"

Never before had Boabdil so resembled his dread father in speech and
air; the vizier trembled to the soles of his feet, and withdrew in
silence. Boabdil watched him depart; and then, clasping his hands in
great emotion, exclaimed, "O lips of the dead! ye have warned me; and to
you I sacrifice the friend of my youth."

On quitting Boabdil the vizier, taking with him some of those foreign
slaves of a seraglio, who know no sympathy with human passion outside
its walls, bent his way to the palace of Muza, sorely puzzled and
perplexed. He did not, however, like to venture upon the hazard of the
alarm it might occasion throughout the neighbourhood, if he endeavoured,
at so unseasonable an hour, to force an entrance. He resolved, rather,
with his train to wait at a little distance, till, with the growing
dawn, the gates should be unclosed, and the inmates of the palace astir.

Accordingly, cursing his stars, and wondering at his mission, Jusef, and
his silent and ominous attendants, concealed themselves in a small copse
adjoining the palace, until the daylight fairly broke over the awakened
city. He then passed into the palace; and was conducted to a hall, where
he found the renowned Moslem already astir, and conferring with some
Zegri captains upon the tactics of a sortie designed for that day.

It was with so evident a reluctance and apprehension that Jusef
approached the prince, that t