wither in neglect and obscurity. But it was necessary
that the most atrocious example of barbarity should accompany his base
desertion. In the arms of sleep, the hapless victim was abandoned amidst
the wilderness of the Alpujarras. She fell into the power of the Moors,
from whom she experienced all the terrors which her forlorn situation
was naturally calculated to produce. Fortune threw her again in contact
with her betrayer, when the cold heartless ruffian, under the most
insidious promises of false repentance, drew her from the house of her
protector, that she might be no obstruction to his ambitious career. He
again delivered her to the power of the Moors, the rebels whose heads
were proscribed, and with whom the guilty man scrupled not to hold
communion, in open defiance of the repeated and solemnly promulgated
decree of your highness."

Here Monteblanco stopped, and a suppressed murmur of indignation ran
through the whole assembly.

"Such an example of depravity," continued the old man, "astonishes you,
but your wonder will be increased when you learn that the man who has so
disgracefully added treason to his crimes is one high in rank, great in
military renown, and honored by the favour of his sovereign."

"Those circumstances," cried the queen, "render his conduct doubly
criminal. Monteblanco, your wrongs shall be redressed. Let the guilt be
firmly established, and then, were the culprit the first man in the
kingdom, the support of my throne--nay," she added, rising in her
anger, "were he even of my own blood, he shall not be screened from the
rigour of the law." As she delivered these words a cloud of indignation
mantled on her brow, and her eyes shot the fire of insulted majesty as
she looked proudly on the surrounding nobles and warriors.

A pause ensued, and the splendid train that had assembled to celebrate a
victory, now gazed on each other in blank dismay, expecting to hear in
the name of the criminal one of their own friends or relatives.

"Pronounce the name of the traitor," cried the queen, "and if he be not
here already, he shall be summoned this very moment into our presence,
to answer these charges."

"His name is powerful," replied Monteblanco.

"Not more so than my will," nobly retorted Isabella.

At this moment a burst of popular applause announced the triumphant
entry of the victorious Spaniard, and the name of Gomez Arias, in the
wild strains of a grateful multitude, was repeated by a t