about? Is it not better to be mistress of this beautiful palace, with
all its gardens and fountains, than to be shut up within your father’s
old frontier tower? As to this Mohamed being an infidel, what is that to
the purpose? You marry him, not his religion; and if he is waxing a
little old, the sooner will you be a widow, and mistress of yourself; at
any rate, you are in his power, and must either be a queen or a slave.
When in the hands of a robber, it is better to sell one’s merchandise
for a fair price, than to have it taken by main force.”
The arguments of the discreet Kadiga prevailed. The Spanish lady dried
her tears, and became the spouse of Mohamed the Left-handed; she even
conformed, in appearance, to the faith of her royal husband; and her
discreet duenna immediately became a zealous convert to the Moslem
doctrines: it was then the latter received the Arabian name of Kadiga,
and was permitted to remain in the confidential employ of her mistress.
In due process of time the Moorish king was made the proud and happy
father of three lovely daughters, all born at a birth: he could have
wished they had been sons, but consoled himself with the idea that
three daughters at a birth were pretty well for a man somewhat stricken
in years, and left-handed!
As usual with all Moslem monarchs, he summoned his astrologers on this
happy event. They cast the nativities of the three princesses, and shook
their heads. “Daughters, O king!” said they, “are always precarious
property; but these will most need your watchfulness when they arrive at
a marriageable age; at that time gather them under your wings, and trust
them to no other guardianship.”
Mohamed the Left-handed was acknowledged to be a wise king by his
courtiers, and was certainly so considered by himself. The prediction of
the astrologers caused him but little disquiet, trusting to his
ingenuity to guard his daughters and outwit the Fates.
The threefold birth was the last matrimonial trophy of the monarch; his
queen bore him no more children, and died within a few years,
bequeathing her infant daughters to his love, and to the fidelity of the
discreet Kadiga.
Many years had yet to elapse before the princesses would arrive at that
period of danger--the marriageable age. “It is good, however, to be
cautious in time,” said the shrewd monarch; so he determined to have
them reared in the royal castle of Salobreña. This was a sumptuous
palace, incrusted, as it were, in a powerful Moorish fortress on the
summit of a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It was a royal
retreat, in which the Moslem monarchs shut up such of their relatives as
might endanger their safety; allowing them all kinds of luxuries and
amusements, in the midst of which they passed their lives in voluptuous
indolence.
Here the princesses remained, immured from the world, but surrounded by
enjoyment, and attended by female slaves who anticipated their wishes.
They had delightful gardens for their recreation, filled with the
rarest fruits and flowers, with aromatic groves and perfumed baths. On
three sides the castle looked down upon a rich valley, enamelled with
all kinds of culture, and bounded by the lofty Alpuxarra mountains; on
the other side it overlooked the broad sunny sea.
In this delicious abode, in a propitious climate, and under a cloudless
sky, the three princesses grew up into wondrous beauty; but, though all
reared alike, they gave early tokens of diversity of character. Their
names were Zayda, Zorayda, and Zorahayda; and such was their order of
seniority, for there had been precisely three minutes between their
births.
Zayda, the eldest, was of an intrepid spirit, and took the lead of her
sisters in everything, as she had done in entering into the world. She
was curious and inquisitive, and fond of getting at the bottom of
things.
Zorayda had a great feeling for beauty, which was the reason, no doubt,
of her delighting to regard her own image in a mirror or a fountain, and
of her fondness for flowers, and jewels, and other tasteful ornaments.
As to Zorahayda, the youngest, she was soft and timid, and extremely
sensitive, with a vast deal of disposable tenderness, as was evident
from her number of pet-flowers, and pet-birds, and pet-animals, all of
which she cherished with the fondest care. Her amusements, too, were of
a gentle nature, and mixed up with musing and reverie. She would sit for
hours in a balcony, gazing on the sparkling stars of a summer’s night,
or on the sea when lit up by the moon; and at such times, the song of a
fisherman, faintly heard from the beach, or the notes of a Moorish flute
from some gliding bark, sufficed to elevate her feelings into ecstasy.
The least uproar of the elements, however, filled her with dismay; and a
clap of thunder was enough to throw her into a swoon.
Years rolled on smoothly and serenely; the discreet Kadiga, to whom the
princesses were confided, was faithful to her trust, and attended them
with unremitting care.
The castle of Salobreña, as has been said, was built upon a hill on the
sea-coast. One of the exterior walls straggled down the profile of the
hill, until it reached a jutting rock overhanging the sea, with a narrow
sandy beach at its foot, laved by the rippling billows. A small
watch-tower on this rock had been fitted up as a pavilion, with latticed
windows to admit the sea-breeze. Here the princesses used to pass the
sultry hours of mid-day.
The curious Zayda was one day seated at a window of the pavilion, as her
sisters, reclining on ottomans, were taking the siesta or noontide
slumber. Her attention was attracted to a galley which came coasting
along, with measured strokes of the oar. As it drew near, she observed
that it was filled with armed men. The galley anchored at the foot of
the tower: a number of Moorish soldiers landed on the narrow beach,
conducting several Christian prisoners. The curious Zayda awakened her
sisters, and all three peeped cautiously through the close jalousies of
the lattice which screened them from sight. Among the prisoners were
three Spanish cavaliers, richly dressed. They were in the flower of
youth, and of noble presence; and the lofty manner in which they carried
themselves, though loaded with chains and surrounded with enemies,
bespoke the grandeur of their souls. The princesses gazed with intense
and breathless interest. Cooped up as they had been in this castle among
female attendants, seeing nothing of the male sex but black slaves, or
the rude fishermen of the sea-coast, it is not to be wondered at that
the appearance of three gallant cavaliers, in the pride of youth and
manly beauty, should produce some commotion in their bosom.
“Did ever nobler being tread the earth than that cavalier in crimson?”
cried Zayda, the eldest of the sisters. “See how proudly he bears
himself, as though all around him were his slaves!”
“But notice that one in green!” exclaimed Zorayda. “What grace! what
elegance! what spirit!”
The gentle Zorahayda said nothing, but she secretly gave preference to
the cavalier in blue.
The princesses remained gazing until the prisoners were out of sight;
then heaving long-drawn sighs, they turned round, looked at each other
for a moment, and sat down, musing and pensive, on their ottomans.
The discreet Kadiga found them in this situation; they related what they
had seen, and even the withered heart of the duenna was warmed. “Poor
youths!” exclaimed she, “I’ll warrant their captivity makes many a fair
and high-born lady’s heart ache in their native land! Ah! my children,
you have little idea of the life these cavaliers lead in their own
country. Such prankling at tournaments! such devotion to the ladies!
such courting and serenading!”
The curiosity of Zayda was fully aroused; she was insatiable in her
inquiries, and drew from the duenna the most animated pictures of the
scenes of her youthful days and native land. The beautiful Zorayda
bridled up, and slyly regarded herself in a mirror, when the theme
turned upon the charms of the Spanish ladies; while Zorahayda suppressed
a struggling sigh at the mention of moonlight serenades.
Every day the curious Zayda renewed her inquiries, and every day the
sage duenna repeated her stories, which were listened to with profound
interest, though with frequent sighs, by her gentle auditors. The
discreet old woman awoke at length to the mischief she might be doing.
She had been accustomed to think of the princesses only as children; but
they had imperceptibly ripened beneath her eye, and now bloomed before
her three lovely damsels of the marriageable age. It is time, thought
the duenna, to give notice to the king.
Mohamed the Left-handed was seated one morning on a divan in a cool hall
of the Alhambra, when a slave arrived from the fortress of Salobreña,
with a message from the sage Kadiga, congratulating him on the
anniversary of his daughters’ birth-day. The slave at the same time
presented a delicate little basket decorated with flowers, within which,
on a couch of vine and fig-leaves, lay a peach, an apricot, and a
nectarine, with their bloom and down and dewy sweetness upon them, and
all in the early stage of tempting ripeness. The monarch was versed in
the Oriental language of fruits and flowers, and rapidly divined the
meaning of this emblematical offering.
“So,” said he, “the critical period pointed out by the astrologers is
arrived: my daughters are at a marriageable age. What is to be done?
They are shut up from the eyes of men; they are under the eyes of the
discreet Kadiga,--all very good,--but still they are not under my own
eye, as was prescribed by the astrologers: I must gather them under my
wing, and trust to no other guardianship.”
So saying, he ordered that a tower of the Alhambra should be prepared
for their reception, and departed at the head of his guards for the
fortress of Salobreña, to conduct them home in person.
About three years had elapsed since Mohamed had beheld his daughters,
and he could scarcely credit his eyes at the wonderful change which that
small space of time had made in their appearance. During the interval,
they had passed that wondrous boundary line in female life which
separates the crude, unformed, and thoughtless girl from the blooming,
blushing, meditative woman. It is like passing from the flat, bleak,
uninteresting plains of La Mancha to the voluptuous valleys and swelling
hills of Andalusia.
Zayda was tall and finely formed, with a lofty demeanor and a
penetrating eye. She entered with a stately and decided step, and made a
profound reverence to Mohamed, treating him more as her sovereign than
her father. Zorayda was of the middle height, with an alluring look and
swimming gait, and a sparkling beauty, heightened by the assistance of
the toilette. She approached her father with a smile, kissed his hand,
and saluted him with several stanzas from a popular Arabian poet, with
which the monarch was delighted. Zorahayda was shy and timid, smaller
than her sisters, and with a beauty of that tender beseeching kind which
looks for fondness and protection. She was little fitted to command,
like her elder sister, or to dazzle like the second, but was rather
formed to creep to the bosom of manly affection, to nestle within it,
and be content. She drew near to her father, with a timid and almost
faltering step, and would have taken his hand to kiss, but on looking up
into his face, and seeing it beaming with a paternal smile, the
tenderness of her nature broke forth, and she threw herself upon his
neck.
Mohamed the Left-handed surveyed his blooming daughters with mingled
pride and perplexity, for while he exulted in their charms, he bethought
himself of the prediction of the astrologers. “Three daughters! three
daughters!” muttered he repeatedly to himself, “and all of a
marriageable age! Here’s tempting Hesperian fruit, that requires a
dragon watch!”
He prepared for his return to Granada, by sending heralds before him,
commanding every one to keep out of the road by which he was to pass,
and that all doors and windows should be closed at the approach of the
princesses. This done, he set forth, escorted by a troop of black
horsemen of hideous aspect, and clad in shining armor.
The princesses rode beside the king, closely veiled, on beautiful white
palfreys, with velvet caparisons, embroidered with gold, and sweeping
the ground; the bits and stirrups were of gold, and the silken bridles
adorned with pearls and precious stones. The palfreys were covered with
little silver bells, which made the most musical tinkling as they ambled
gently along. Woe to the unlucky wight, however, who lingered in the way
when he heard the tinkling of these bells!--the guards were ordered to
cut him down without mercy.
The cavalcade was drawing near to Granada, when it overtook, on the
banks of the river Xenil, a small body of Moorish soldiers with a convoy
of prisoners. It was too late for the soldiers to get out of the way, so
they threw themselves on their faces on the earth, ordering their
captives to do the like. Among the prisoners were the three identical
cavaliers whom the princesses had seen from the pavilion. They either
did not understand, or were too haughty to obey the order, and remained
standing and gazing upon the cavalcade as it approached.
The ire of the monarch was kindled at this flagrant defiance of his
orders. Drawing his cimeter, and pressing forward, he was about to deal
a left-handed blow that might have been fatal to at least one of the
gazers, when the princesses crowded round him, and implored mercy for
the prisoners; even the timid Zorahayda forgot her shyness, and became
eloquent in their behalf. Mohamed paused, with uplifted cimeter, when
the captain of the guard threw himself at his feet. “Let not your
highness,” said he, “do a deed that may cause great scandal throughout
the kingdom. These are three brave and noble Spanish knights, who have
been taken in battle, fighting like lions; they are of high birth, and
may bring great ransoms.”--“Enough!” said the king. “I will spare their
lives, but punish their audacity--let them be taken to the Vermilion
Towers, and put to hard labor.”
Mohamed was making one of his usual left-handed blunders. In the tumult
and agitation of this blustering scene, the veils of the three
princesses had been thrown back, and the radiance of their beauty
revealed; and in prolonging the parley, the king had given that beauty
time to have its full effect. In those days people fell in love much
more suddenly than at present, as all ancient stories make manifest: it
is not a matter of wonder, therefore, that the hearts of the three
cavaliers were completely captured; especially as gratitude was added to
their admiration; it is a little singular, however, though no less
certain, that each of them was enraptured with a several beauty. As to
the princesses, they were more than ever struck with the noble demeanor
of the captives, and cherished in their breasts all that they had heard
of their valor and noble lineage.
The cavalcade resumed its march; the three princesses rode pensively
along on their tinkling palfreys, now and then stealing a glance behind
in search of the Christian captives, and the latter were conducted to
their allotted prison in the Vermilion Towers.
The residence provided for the princesses was one of the most dainty
that fancy could devise. It was in a tower somewhat apart from the main
palace of the Alhambra, though connected with it by the wall which
encircled the whole summit of the hill. On one side it looked into the
interior of the fortress, and had, at its foot, a small garden filled
with the rarest flowers. On the other side it overlooked a deep
embowered ravine separating the grounds of the Alhambra from those of
the Generalife. The interior of the tower was divided into small fairy
apartments, beautifully ornamented in the light Arabian style,
surrounding a lofty hall, the vaulted roof of which rose almost to the
summit of the tower. The walls and the ceilings of the hall were adorned
with arabesque and fretwork, sparkling with gold and with brilliant
pencilling. In the centre of the marble pavement was an alabaster
fountain, set round with aromatic shrubs and flowers, and throwing up a
jet of water that cooled the whole edifice and had a lulling sound.
Round the hall were suspended cages of gold and silver wire, containing
singing birds of the finest plumage or sweetest note.
The princesses had been represented as always cheerful when in the
castle of the Salobreña; the king had expected to see them enraptured
with the Alhambra. To his surprise, however, they began to pine, and
grow melancholy, and dissatisfied with everything around them. The
flowers yielded them no fragrance, the song of the nightingale disturbed
their night’s rest, and they were out of all patience with the alabaster
fountain, with its eternal drop-drop and splash-splash, from morning
till night and from night till morning.
The king, who was somewhat of a testy, tyrannical disposition, took this
at first in high dudgeon; but he reflected that his daughters had
arrived at an age when the female mind expands and its desires augment.
“They are no longer children,” said he to himself, “they are women
grown, and require suitable objects to interest them.” He put in
requisition, therefore, all the dressmakers, and the jewellers, and the
artificers in gold and silver throughout the Zacatin of Granada, and the
princesses were overwhelmed with robes of silk, and tissue, and brocade,
and cashmere shawls, and necklaces of pearls and diamonds, and rings,
and bracelets, and anklets, and all manner of precious things.
All, however, was of no avail; the princesses continued pale and languid
in the midst of their finery, and looked like three blighted rose-buds,
drooping from one stalk. The king was at his wits’ end. He had in
general a laudable confidence in his own judgment, and never took
advice. “The whims and caprices of three marriageable damsels, however,
are sufficient,” said he, “to puzzle the shrewdest head.” So for once in
his life he called in the aid of counsel.
The person to whom he applied was the experienced duenna.
“Kadiga,” said the king, “I know you to be one of the most discreet
women in the whole world, as well as one of the most trustworthy; for
these reasons I have always continued you about the persons of my
daughters. Fathers cannot be too wary in whom they repose such
confidence; I now wish you to find out the secret malady that is preying
upon the princesses, and to devise some means of restoring them to
health and cheerfulness.”
Kadiga promised implicit obedience. In fact she knew more of the malady
of the princesses than they themselves. Shutting herself up with them,
however, she endeavored to insinuate herself into their confidence.
“My dear children, what is the reason you are so dismal and downcast in
so beautiful a place, where you have everything that heart can wish?”
The princesses looked vacantly round the apartment, and sighed.
“What more, then, would you have? Shall I get you the wonderful parrot
that talks all languages, and is the delight of Granada?”
“Odious!” exclaimed the princess Zayda. “A horrid, screaming bird, that
chatters words without ideas: one must be without brains to tolerate
such a pest.”
“Shall I send for a monkey from the rock of Gibraltar, to divert you
with his antics?”
“A monkey! faugh!” cried Zorayda; “the detestable mimic of man. I hate
the nauseous animal.”
“What say you to the famous black singer Casem, from the royal harem, in
Morocco? They say he has a voice as fine as a woman’s.”
“I am terrified at the sight of these black slaves,” said the delicate
Zorahayda; “besides, I have lost all relish for music.”
“Ah! my child, you would not say so,” replied the old woman, slyly, “had
you heard the music I heard last evening, from the three Spanish
cavaliers whom we met on our journey. But bless me, children! what is
the matter that you blush so and are in such a flutter?”
“Nothing, nothing, good mother; pray proceed.”
“Well; as I was passing by the Vermilion Towers last evening, I saw the
three cavaliers resting after their day’s labor. One was playing on the
guitar, so gracefully, and the others sang by turns; and they did it in
such style, that the very guards seemed like statues, or men enchanted.
Allah forgive me! I could not help being moved at hearing the songs of
my native country. And then to see three such noble and handsome youths
in chains and slavery!”
Here the kind-hearted old woman could not restrain her tears.
“Perhaps, mother, you could manage to procure us a sight of these
cavaliers,” said Zayda.
“I think,” said Zorayda, “a little music would be quite reviving.”
The timid Zorahayda said nothing, but threw her arms round the neck of
Kadiga.
“Mercy on me!” exclaimed the discreet old woman; “what are you talking
of, my children? Your father would be the death of us all if he heard of
such a thing. To be sure, these cavaliers are evidently well-bred, and
high-minded youths; but what of that? they are the enemies of our faith,
and you must not even think of them but with abhorrence.”
There is an admirable intrepidity in the female will, particularly when
about the marriageable age, which is not to be deterred by dangers and
prohibitions. The princesses hung round their old duenna, and coaxed,
and entreated, and declared that a refusal would break their hearts.
What could she do? She was certainly the most discreet old woman in the
whole world, and one of the most faithful servants to the king; but was
she to see three beautiful princesses break their hearts for the mere
tinkling of a guitar? Besides, though she had been so long among the
Moors, and changed her faith in imitation of her mistress, like a trusty
follower, yet she was a Spaniard born, and had the lingerings of
Christianity in her heart. So she set about to contrive how the wish of
the princesses might be gratified.
The Christian captives, confined in the Vermilion Towers, were under the
charge of a big-whiskered, broad-shouldered renegado, called Hussein
Baba, who was reputed to have a most itching palm. She went to him
privately, and slipping a broad piece of gold into his hand, “Hussein
Baba,” said she; “my mistresses the three princesses, who are shut up in
the tower, and in sad want of amusement, have heard of the musical
talents of the three Spanish cavaliers, and are desirous of hearing a
specimen of their skill. I am sure you are too kind-hearted to refuse
them so innocent a gratification.”
“What! and to have my head set grinning over the gate of my own tower!
for that would be the reward, if the king should discover it.”
“No danger of anything of the kind; the affair may be managed so that
the whim of the princesses may be gratified, and their father be never
the wiser. You know the deep ravine outside of the walls which passes
immediately below the tower. Put the three Christians to work there, and
at the intervals of their labor, let them play and sing, as if for their
own recreation. In this way the princesses will be able to hear them
from the windows of the tower, and you may be sure of their paying well
for your compliance.”
As the good old woman concluded her harangue, she kindly pressed the
rough hand of the renegado, and left within it another piece of gold.
Her eloquence was irresistible. The very next day the three cavaliers
were put to work in the ravine. During the noontide heat, when their
fellow-laborers were sleeping in the shade, and the guard nodding
drowsily at his post, they seated themselves among the herbage at the
foot of the tower, and sang a Spanish roundelay to the accompaniment of
the guitar.
The glen was deep, the tower was high, but their voices rose distinctly
in the stillness of the summer noon. The princesses listened from their
balcony, they had been taught the Spanish language by their duenna, and
were moved by the tenderness of the song. The discreet Kadiga, on the
contrary, was terribly shocked. “Allah preserve us!” cried she, “they
are singing a love-ditty, addressed to yourselves. Did ever mortal hear
of such audacity? I will run to the slave-master, and have them soundly
bastinadoed.”