whose notoriety in gallantry, she began
to suspect, did not originate in idle rumour.

Meanwhile the irritated Don Lope spared no efforts to place his own
conduct in a favorable light, and endeavoured to cast the imputation of
caprice on that of the Aguilars. He complained constantly in terms of
acrimony of the ungrateful manner in which his affection had been
requited, and vowed vengeance against de Leyva, whom he accused of most
criminal and ungentlemanly duplicity.

Contending feelings kept him in a continual turmoil, and he earnestly
wished for an opportunity that might divert both the court and himself
from a subject of which he was so disagreeably the hero.

Fortune again favoured his desires, by bringing about an event as
terrible as it was altogether unexpected.

CHAPTER II.

The battle is their pastime; they go forth
Gay in the morn as to the summer's sport:
When evening comes, the glory of the morn,
The youthful warrior, is a clod of clay.

_Home._

The streets and squares of Granada were thronged with a bustling and
confused crowd. Here groups were assembled talking earnestly, and
evincing all the signs of surprise and terror--there others were running
about as if the dreaded event was actually come to pass. A continual hum
was heard in every corner of the city; every tongue was eloquent in
telling, and happy was he who could obtain an attentive listener, where
all were eager to assume the part of orators. Indeed the cause of these
demonstrations was important: several expresses had arrived, announcing
the insurrection of the Sierra Bermeja, with the additional calamity
that the terrible El Feri de Benastepar, whom they all supposed to have
been slain, was not only safe and alive, but with the means of renewing
a desperate warfare, and actually possessed of a force sufficiently
strong to enable him to march upon Granada.

The town of Alhaurin, and several villages in the vicinity of the Sierra
Bermeja were likewise in arms, and the rebellion seemed rapidly to
extend throughout the whole of the surrounding country.

The rage of the Christians on receiving this intelligence was greatly
increased by the insolent carriage of their fellow-citizens of the
Mahomedan creed. Indeed, they evinced, in the triumph of their demeanor,
the workings of smothered hatred, that only waited an opportunity to
explode. Granada itself would have become a scene of t