fellow, named Lope Sanchez, who worked in the gardens, and was as brisk
and as blithe as a grasshopper, singing all day long. He was the life and
soul of the fortress; when his work was over, he would sit on one of the
stone benches of the esplanade, strum his guitar, and sing long ditties
about the Cid, and Bernardo del Carpio, and Fernando del Pulgar, and other
Spanish heroes, for the amusement of the old soldiers of the fortress; or
would strike up a merrier tune, and set the girls dancing _boleros_ and
_fandangos_.
Like most little men, Lope Sanchez had a strapping buxom dame for a wife,
who could almost have put him in her pocket; but he lacked the usual poor
man's lot--instead of ten children he had but one. This was a little
black-eyed girl about twelve years of age, named Sanchica, who was as
merry as himself, and the delight of his heart. She played about him as he
worked in the gardens, danced to his guitar as he sat in the shade, and
ran as wild as a young fawn about the groves and alleys and ruined halls
of the Alhambra.
It was now the eve of the blessed St. John, and the holiday-loving
gossips of the Alhambra, men, women, and children, went up at night to
the Mountain of the Sun, which rises above the Generalife, to keep their
midsummer vigil on its level summit. It was a bright moonlight night, and
all the mountains were gray and silvery, and the city, with its domes and
spires, lay in shadows below, and the Vega was like a fairy land, with
haunted streams gleaming among its dusky groves. On the highest part of
the mountain they lit up a bonfire, according to an old custom of the
country handed down from the Moors. The inhabitants of the surrounding
country were keeping a similar vigil, and bonfires, here and there in
the Vega, and along the folds of the mountains, blazed up palely in the
moonlight.
The evening was gayly passed in dancing to the guitar of Lope Sanchez,
who was never so joyous as when on a holiday revel of the kind. While
the dance was going on, the little Sanchica with some of her playmates
sported among the ruins of an old Moorish fort that crowns the mountain,
when, in gathering pebbles in the fosse, she found a small hand curiously
carved of jet, the fingers closed, and the thumb firmly clasped upon
them. Overjoyed with her good fortune, she ran to her mother with her
prize. It immediately became a subject of sage speculation, and was eyed
by some with superstitious distrust. "Throw it away," said one; "it's
Moorish,--depend upon it, there's mischief and witchcraft in it." "By no
means," said another; "you may sell it for something to the jewellers of
the Zacatin." In the midst of this discussion an old tawny soldier drew
near, who had served in Africa, and was as swarthy as a Moor. He examined
the hand with a knowing look. "I have seen things of this kind," said he,
"among the Moors of Barbary. It is a great virtue to guard against the
evil eye, and all kinds of spells and enchantments. I give you joy, friend
Lope, this bodes good luck to your child."
Upon hearing this, the wife of Lope Sanchez tied the little hand of jet
to a ribbon, and hung it round the neck of her daughter.
The sight of this talisman called up all the favourite superstitions
about the Moors. The dance was neglected, and they sat in groups on the
ground, telling old legendary tales handed down from their ancestors.
Some of their stories turned upon the wonders of the very mountain upon
which they were seated, which is a famous hobgoblin region. One ancient
crone gave a long account of the subterranean palace in the bowels of
that mountain where Boabdil and all his Moslem court are said to remain
enchanted. "Among yonder ruins," said she, pointing to some crumbling
walls and mounds of earth on a distant part of the mountain, "there is a
deep-black pit that goes down, down into the very heart of the mountain.
For all the money in Granada I would not look down into it. Once upon
a time a poor man of the Alhambra, who tended goats upon this mountain,
scrambled down into that pit after a kid that had fallen in. He came out
again all wild and staring, and told such things of what he had seen, that
every one thought his brain was turned. He raved for a day or two about
the hobgoblin Moors that had pursued him in the cavern, and could hardly
be persuaded to drive his goats up again to the mountain. He did so at
last, but, poor man, he never came down again. The neighbours found his
goats browsing about the Moorish ruins, and his hat and mantle lying near
the mouth of the pit, but he was never more heard of."
The little Sanchica listened with breathless attention to this story. She
was of a curious nature, and felt immediately a great hankering to peep
into this dangerous pit. Stealing away from her companions, she sought
the distant ruins, and, after groping for some time among them, came to
a small hollow, or basin, near the brow of the mountain, where it swept
steeply down into the valley of the Darro. In the centre of this basin
yawned the mouth of the pit. Sanchica ventured to the verge, and peeped
in. All was as black as pitch, and gave an idea of immeasurable depth. Her
blood ran cold; she drew back, then peeped in again, then would have run
away, then took another peep,--the very horror of the thing was delightful
to her. At length she rolled a large stone, and pushed it over the brink.
For some time it fell in silence; then struck some rocky projection with
a violent crash; then rebounded from side to side, rumbling and tumbling,
with a noise like thunder; then made a final splash into water, far, far
below,--and all was again silent.
The silence, however, did not long continue. It seemed as if something
had been awakened within this dreary abyss. A murmuring sound gradually
rose out of the pit like the hum and buzz of a beehive. It grew louder
and louder, there was the confusion of voices as of a distant multitude,
together with the faint din of arms, clash of cymbals and clangor of
trumpets, as if some army were marshalling for battle in the very bowels
of the mountain.
The child drew off with silent awe, and hastened back to the place
where she had left her parents and their companions. All were gone. The
bonfire was expiring, and its last wreath of smoke curling up in the
moonshine. The distant fires that had blazed along the mountains and in
the Vega were all extinguished, and everything seemed to have sunk to
repose. Sanchica called her parents and some of her companions by name,
but received no reply. She ran down the side of the mountain, and by the
gardens of the Generalife, until she arrived in the alley of trees leading
to the Alhambra, when she seated herself on a bench of a woody recess,
to recover breath. The bell from the watch-tower of the Alhambra tolled
midnight. There was a deep tranquillity as if all nature slept; excepting
the low tinkling sound of an unseen stream that ran under the covert of
the bushes. The breathing sweetness of the atmosphere was lulling her to
sleep, when her eye was caught by something glittering at a distance, and
to her surprise she beheld a long cavalcade of Moorish warriors pouring
down the mountain-side and along the leafy avenues. Some were armed
with lances and shields; others, with cimeters and battle-axes, and with
polished cuirasses that flashed in the moonbeams. Their horses pranced
proudly and champed upon their bits, but their tramp caused no more sound
than if they had been shod with felt, and the riders were all as pale as
death. Among them rode a beautiful lady, with a crowned head and long
golden locks entwined with pearls. The housings of her palfrey were of
crimson velvet embroidered with gold, and swept the earth; but she rode
all disconsolate, with her eyes ever fixed upon the ground.
Then succeeded a train of courtiers magnificently arrayed in robes and
turbans of divers colours, and amidst them, on a cream-coloured charger,
rode king Boabdil el Chico, in a royal mantle covered with jewels, and a
crown sparkling with diamonds. The little Sanchica knew him by his yellow
beard, and his resemblance to his portrait, which she had often seen in
the picture-gallery of the Generalife. She gazed in wonder and admiration
at this royal pageant, as it passed glistening among the trees; but
though she knew these monarchs and courtiers and warriors, so pale and
silent, were out of the common course of nature, and things of magic and
enchantment, yet she looked on with a bold heart, such courage did she
derive from the mystic talisman of the hand, which was suspended about
her neck.
The cavalcade having passed by, she rose and followed. It continued on
to the great Gate of Justice, which stood wide open; the old invalid
sentinels on duty lay on the stone benches of the barbican, buried in
profound and apparently charmed sleep, and the phantom pageant swept
noiselessly by them with flaunting banner and triumphant state. Sanchica
would have followed; but to her surprise she beheld an opening in the
earth, within the barbican, leading down beneath the foundations of the
tower. She entered for a little distance, and was encouraged to proceed
by finding steps rudely hewn in the rock, and a vaulted passage here
and there lit up by a silver lamp, which, while it gave light, diffused
likewise a grateful fragrance. Venturing on, she came at last to a great
hall, wrought out of the heart of the mountain, magnificently furnished
in the Moorish style, and lighted up by silver and crystal lamps. Here,
on an ottoman, sat an old man in Moorish dress, with a long white beard,
nodding and dozing, with a staff in his hand, which seemed ever to be
slipping from his grasp; while at a little distance sat a beautiful lady,
in ancient Spanish dress, with a coronet all sparkling with diamonds,
and her hair entwined with pearls, who was softly playing on a silver
lyre. The little Sanchica now recollected a story she had heard among the
old people of the Alhambra, concerning a Gothic princess confined in the
centre of the mountain by an old Arabian magician, whom she kept bound up
in magic sleep by the power of music.
The lady paused with surprise at seeing a mortal in that enchanted hall.
"Is it the eve of the blessed St. John?" said she.
"It is," replied Sanchica.
"Then for one night the magic charm is suspended. Come hither, child, and
fear not. I am a Christian like thyself, though bound here by enchantment.
Touch my fetters with the talisman that hangs about thy neck, and for this
night I shall be free."
So saying, she opened her robes and displayed a broad golden band round
her waist, and a golden chain that fastened her to the ground. The child
hesitated not to apply the little hand of jet to the golden band, and
immediately the chain fell to the earth. At the sound the old man woke
and began to rub his eyes; but the lady ran her fingers over the chords
of the lyre, and again he fell into a slumber and began to nod, and his
staff to falter in his hand. "Now," said the lady, "touch his staff with
the talismanic hand of jet." The child did so, and it fell from his grasp,
and he sank in a deep sleep on the ottoman. The lady gently laid the
silver lyre on the ottoman, leaning it against the head of the sleeping
magician; then touching the chords until they vibrated in his ear,--"O
potent spirit of harmony," said she, "continue thus to hold his senses in
thraldom till the return of day. Now follow me, my child," continued she,
"and thou shalt behold the Alhambra as it was in the days of its glory,
for thou hast a magic talisman that reveals all enchantments." Sanchica
followed the lady in silence. They passed up through the entrance of the
cavern into the barbican of the Gate of Justice, and thence to the _Plaza
de los Algibes_, or esplanade within the fortress.
This was all filled with Moorish soldiery, horse and foot, marshalled
in squadrons, with banners displayed. There were royal guards also
at the portal, and rows of African blacks with drawn cimeters. No one
spoke a word, and Sanchica passed on fearlessly after her conductor. Her
astonishment increased on entering the royal palace, in which she had been
reared. The broad moonshine lit up all the halls and courts and gardens
almost as brightly as if it were day, but revealed a far different scene
from that to which she was accustomed. The walls of the apartments were
no longer stained and rent by time. Instead of cobwebs, they were now hung
with rich silks of Damascus, and the gildings and arabesque paintings were
restored to their original brilliancy and freshness. The halls, no longer
naked and unfurnished, were set out with divans and ottomans of the rarest
stuffs, embroidered with pearls and studded with precious gems, and all
the fountains in the courts and gardens were playing.
The kitchens were again in full operation: cooks were busy preparing
shadowy dishes, and roasting and boiling the phantoms of pullets and
partridges; servants were hurrying to and fro with silver dishes heaped up
with dainties, and arranging a delicious banquet. The Court of Lions was
thronged with guards, and courtiers, and alfaquis, as in the old times of
the Moors; and at the upper end, in the saloon of judgment, sat Boabdil
on his throne, surrounded by his court, and swaying a shadowy sceptre
for the night. Notwithstanding all this throng and seeming bustle, not
a voice nor a footstep was to be heard; nothing interrupted the midnight
silence but the splashing of the fountains. The little Sanchica followed
her conductress in mute amazement about the palace, until they came to a
portal opening to the vaulted passages beneath the great tower of Comares.
On each side of the portal sat the figure of a nymph, wrought out of
alabaster. The heads were turned aside, and their regards fixed upon the
same spot within the vault. The enchanted lady paused, and beckoned the
child to her. "Here," said she, "is a great secret, which I will reveal
to thee in reward for thy faith and courage. These discreet statues
watch over a treasure hidden in old times by a Moorish king. Tell thy
father to search the spot on which their eyes are fixed, and he will find
what will make him richer than any man in Granada. Thy innocent hands
alone, however, gifted as thou art also with the talisman, can remove
the treasure. Bid thy father use it discreetly, and devote a part of it
to the performance of daily masses for my deliverance from this unholy
enchantment."
When the lady had spoken these words, she led the child onward to the
little garden of Lindaraxa, which is hard by the vault of the statues. The
moon trembled upon the waters of the solitary fountain in the centre of
the garden, and shed a tender light upon the orange and citron trees. The
beautiful lady plucked a branch of myrtle and wreathed it round the head
of the child. "Let this be a memento," said she, "of what I have revealed
to thee, and a testimonial of its truth. My hour is come; I must return
to the enchanted hall; follow me not, lest evil befall thee;--farewell.
Remember what I have said, and have masses performed for my deliverance."
So saying, the lady entered a dark passage leading beneath the tower of
Comares, and was no longer seen.
The faint crowing of a cock was now heard from the cottages below the
Alhambra, in the valley of the Darro, and a pale streak of light began
to appear above the eastern mountains. A slight wind arose, there was a
sound like the rustling of dry leaves through the courts and corridors,
and door after door shut to with a jarring sound.
Sanchica returned to the scenes she had so lately beheld thronged with
the shadowy multitude, but Boabdil and his phantom court were gone. The
moon shone into empty halls and galleries stripped of their transient
splendour, stained and dilapidated by time, and hung with cobwebs. The
bat flitted about in the uncertain light, and the frog croaked from the
fish-pond.
Sanchica now made the best of her way to a remote staircase that led up to
the humble apartment occupied by her family. The door as usual was open,
for Lope Sanchez was too poor to need bolt or bar; she crept quietly to
her pallet, and, putting the myrtle wreath beneath her pillow, soon fell
asleep.
In the morning she related all that had befallen her to her father. Lope
Sanchez, however, treated the whole as a mere dream, and laughed at the
child for her credulity. He went forth to his customary labours in the
garden, but had not been there long when his little daughter came running
to him almost breathless. "Father! father!" cried she, "behold the myrtle
wreath which the Moorish lady bound round my head!"
Lope Sanchez gazed with astonishment, for the stalk of the myrtle was
of pure gold, and every leaf was a sparkling emerald! Being not much
accustomed to precious stones, he was ignorant of the real value of the
wealth, but he saw enough to convince him that it was something more
substantial than the stuff of which dreams are generally made, and that
at any rate the child had dreamt to some purpose. His first care was
to enjoin the most absolute secrecy upon his daughter; in this respect,
however, he was secure, for she had discretion far beyond her years or
sex. He then repaired to the vault, where stood the statues of the two
alabaster nymphs. He remarked that their heads were turned from the
portal, and that the regards of each were fixed upon the same point in
the interior of the building. Lope Sanchez could not but admire this most
discreet contrivance for guarding a secret. He drew a line from the eyes
of the statues to the point of regard, made a private mark on the wall,
and then retired.
All day, however, the mind of Lope Sanchez was distracted with a thousand
cares. He could not help hovering within distant view of the two statues,
and became nervous from the dread that the golden secret might be
discovered. Every footstep that approached the place made him tremble.
He would have given anything could he but have turned the heads of the
statues, forgetting that they had looked precisely in the same direction
for some hundreds of years, without any person being the wiser.
"A plague upon them," he would say to himself, "they'll betray all; did
ever mortal hear of such a mode of guarding a secret?" Then on hearing
any one advance, he would steal off, as though his very lurking near the
place would awaken suspicion. Then he would return cautiously, and peep
from a distance to see if everything was secure, but the sight of the
statues would again call forth his indignation. "Ay, there they stand,"
would he say, "always looking, and looking, and looking, just where they
should not. Confound them! they are just like all their sex; if they have
not tongues to tattle with, they'll be sure to do it with their eyes."
At length, to his relief, the long anxious day drew to a close. The sound
of footsteps was no longer heard in the echoing halls of the Alhambra;
the last stranger passed the threshold, the great portal was barred and
bolted, and the bat and the frog and the hooting owl gradually resumed
their nightly vocations in the deserted palace.
Lope Sanchez waited, however, until the night was far advanced before
he ventured with his little daughter to the hall of the two nymphs. He
found them looking as knowingly and mysteriously as ever at the secret
place of deposit. "By your leaves, gentle ladies," thought Lope Sanchez,
as he passed between them, "I will relieve you from this charge that must
have set so heavy in your minds for the last two or three centuries." He
accordingly went to work at the part of the wall which he had marked,
and in a little while laid open a concealed recess, in which stood two
great jars of porcelain. He attempted to draw them forth, but they were
immovable, until touched by the innocent hand of his little daughter. With
her aid he dislodged them from their niche, and found, to his great joy,
that they were filled with pieces of Moorish gold, mingled with jewels
and precious stones. Before daylight he managed to convey them to his
chamber, and left the two guardian statues with their eyes still fixed on
the vacant wall.
Lope Sanchez had thus on a sudden become a rich man; but riches, as usual,
brought a world of cares to which he had hitherto been a stranger. How
was he to convey away his wealth with safety? How was he even to enter
upon the enjoyment of it without awakening suspicion? Now, too, for the
first time in his life the dread of robbers entered into his mind. He
looked with terror at the insecurity of his habitation, and went to work
to barricade the doors and windows; yet after all his precautions he could
not sleep soundly. His usual gaiety was at an end, he had no longer a joke
or a song for his neighbours, and, in short, became the most miserable
animal in the Alhambra. His old comrades remarked this alteration, pitied
him heartily, and began to desert him; thinking he must be falling into
want, and into danger of looking to them for assistance. Little did they
suspect that his only calamity was riches.
The wife of Lope Sanchez shared his anxiety, but then she had ghostly
comfort. We ought before this to have mentioned that Lope, being rather
a light inconsiderate little man, his wife was accustomed, in all grave
matters, to seek the counsel and ministry of her confessor Fray Simon,
a sturdy, broad-shouldered blue-bearded, bullet-headed friar of the
neighbouring convent of San Francisco, who was in fact the spiritual
comforter of half the good wives of the neighbourhood. He was moreover
in great esteem among divers sisterhoods of nuns; who requited him for
his ghostly services by frequent presents of those little dainties and
knick-knacks manufactured in convents, such as delicate confections,
sweet biscuits, and bottles of spiced cordials, found to be marvellous
restoratives after fasts and vigils.
Fray Simon thrived in the exercise of his functions. His oily skin
glistened in the sunshine as he toiled up the hill of the Alhambra on
a sultry day. Yet notwithstanding his sleek condition, the knotted rope
round his waist showed the austerity of his self-discipline; the multitude
doffed their caps to him as a mirror of piety, and even the dogs scented
the odour of sanctity that exhaled from his garments, and howled from
their kennels as he passed.
Such was Fray Simon, the spiritual counsellor of the comely wife of Lope
Sanchez; and as the father confessor is the domestic confidant of women
in humble life in Spain, he was soon acquainted, in great secrecy, with
the story of the hidden treasure.
The friar opened his eyes and mouth, and crossed himself a dozen times at
the news. After a moment's pause, "Daughter of my soul!" said he, "know
that thy husband has committed a double sin--a sin against both state and
church! The treasure he hath thus seized upon for himself, being found
in the royal domains, belongs of course to the crown; but being infidel
wealth, rescued as it were from the very fangs of Satan, should be devoted
to the church. Still, however, the matter may be accommodated. Bring
hither thy myrtle wreath."
When the good father beheld it, his eyes twinkled more than ever with
admiration of the size and beauty of the emeralds. "This," said he, "being
the first-fruits of this discovery, should be dedicated to pious purposes.
I will hang it up as a votive offering before the image of San Francisco
in our chapel, and will earnestly pray to him, this very night, that your
husband be permitted to remain in quiet possession of your wealth."
The good dame was delighted to make her peace with heaven at so cheap a
rate, and the friar, putting the wreath under his mantle, departed with
saintly steps towards his convent.
When Lope Sanchez came home, his wife told him what had passed. He was
excessively provoked, for he lacked his wife's devotion, and had for some
time groaned in secret at the domestic visitations of the friar. "Woman,"
said he, "what hast thou done? thou hast put everything at hazard by thy
tattling."
"What!" cried the good woman, "would you forbid my disburdening my
conscience to my confessor?"
"No, wife! confess as many of your own sins as you please; but as to this
money-digging, it is a sin of my own, and my conscience is very easy under
the weight of it."