Old Court Life in Spain (Vol.1&2). Frances Minto Elliot

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СКАЧАТЬ of passion cast these sinister forebodings from him, and, with a calm and steady voice, he answered:

      “But why, my queen, should you, the wife of Roderich, be answerable for his doom? It is said that the Gothic king tempted the infernal powers when he forced open the portals of the Tower of Hercules and let forth the demons confined there upon the earth.”

      “That is true,” answered Egilona, “and the rash act was doubtless the cause of his death. Still the misfortunes which cling to me seem to have led on to his. Had he not loved me he might have married the daughter of Don Julian.”

      “And what misfortunes has my Egilona encountered? You forget I know not who you are, or how you came here.”

      Then she recounted to him her royal birth, and how from childhood she had been affianced to the son of the King of Tunis; the history of the storm which threw her on the coast of Spain; the Alcaide of Denia (now Malaga), upon whom she had made so favourable an impression. (Here the enamoured Emir drew a deep sigh, and pressed his lips upon her hand as she lay half-reclining upon a pile of gold-worked cushions.)

      “Again I wore the bridal robes,” she continued, “which I had on when I was shipwrecked, as I awaited Don Roderich.”

      Here was a pause. Egilona drops her eyes and is silent. The veins on the forehead of Abdul-asis suddenly swell with agony. Every word she utters plunges a dagger in his breast. “This was the man she loved,” he tells himself. “By the Prophet, she will never be to me as she was to him—dog of a Christian!”

      Meanwhile, guessing his thoughts, a thousand blushes suffuse the cheeks of poor Egilona and dye her olive skin with a ruddy brilliance. “What could I do?” she asks in a plaintive voice. “I had broken through the bonds of Eastern custom; I had despised the laws of the harem; I had stood face to face with man. The beauty and variety of the outer world was known to me. The visits of Don Roderich——”

      “Say no more, my queen!” exclaims the generous-hearted Abdul-asis, ashamed of his jealous weakness. “Could any one approach you without love? I guess the conclusion.”

      When the discreet Ayub was informed of the purpose of his cousin to wed the Gothic Queen, he covered his head and sat in sackcloth and ashes. In this unbecoming guise he forced himself into the presence of the Emir.

      “Are you mad?” he cries, “O son of Mousa! Remember the words of your great father, bravest among the chiefs of Damascus: ‘Beware of love, my son. It is a passion——’ ”

      “Enough, enough,” answers Abdul-asis, rising from the divan on which he had thrown himself, as the spectacle his cousin presented had moved him to laughter, “I have heard these words before.”

      “And you will hear them again, O son of my kinsman! I will not forsake you, by Allah! for his sake, nor give you over to the evil genius that possesses you.”

      But the wrongs of Ayub, however terrible, melted as wax before the fierce fire of the Emir’s love.

      His nuptials with Egilona were celebrated with great pomp. Nor did possession cool his ardour. He lived but for her. He consulted with her in all the affairs of his government, and rejected the counsels of the discreet though most troublesome cousin.

      For a time no evil consequences ensued, and the fears of Ayub were almost lulled. Yet who can resist his fate?

      Reposing one day in a gorgeous chamber of the Alcazar (it is now called the room of Maria de Padilla, but it was then known as the Hall of the Sultana), Egilona drew from under the folds of her mantle a circlet of gold.

      “See, love,” said she, “the crown of Roderich the Goth. Let me place it on your brow. It will become you well.”

      Holding up as she spoke a steel mirror attached to her girdle by a rope of pearls, she called upon him to admire the majesty of his appearance.

      With a sigh he looked at himself, the crown placed on the folds of his turban, then put it from him and, like Cæsar, sighed that it could not be his.

      “My love,” says Egilona, replacing it, “the wearer of a crown is a sovereign indeed. Believe me, the Christians are right; it sanctifies the rule.”

      A second time, like Cæsar, Abdul-asis put the crown from him. Yet did his fingers linger on the rim, while he endeavoured to explain to Egilona that, as a Moslem, she must not urge him to go against the custom of his nation.

      Still Egilona insists, her soft fingers clasped in his, her tempting lips resting on his own.

      “There has been no real king in Spain,” she urges, “without a crown. I pray you, dear husband, do not refuse me.”

      At first it was only worn in private, but the fact was too strange not to be noised abroad. The Moorish damsels in attendance on Egilona and the guards and eunuchs which fill an Eastern Court bore the news from mouth to mouth as a strange wonderment.

      “The Emir not only has wedded a Christian wife, but he wears the Gothic crown,” is whispered in Seville. “He seeks to rule us as Roderich did.” To this was added by the many-tongued voice of calumny, “that not only Egilona had induced him to become a king, but, oh horror of horrors, that he was surely a Christian!”

      “By the head of the Prophet, I swear it is a lie!” cried the discreet Ayub to the ancient counsellors Mousa had placed about his son, who, in their long dark robes, gathered round him in dismay. “Not a day passes but Abdul-asis may be seen offering up his prayers in the Zeca, his face turned towards Mecca. Ask the muezzin at the Giralda if it be not so. Five times a day does he prostrate himself; and as to purifying, there is not water enough in Seville to serve him.”

      “But the crown, most powerful vizier, does not the Emir wear a crown?”

      At this Ayub, feigning a sudden fit of coughing, turned aside. “I have never seen it,” he answers at last; “I swear I have never seen it.”

      “That may very likely be,” is the answer; “but it is well known, and for a Moslem to wear a Christian crown is against the laws of the Koran. Allah Achbar! we have spoken.” So, covering their faces with their robes, as those that mourn the dead, they departed from the presence of Ayub.

      Enemies were not wanting to Abdul-asis in Seville, his own, and those who hated him as the son of the famous Mousa.

      These wrote hasty letters to Damascus, accusing him not only of detaining captives of price, but as seeking to establish the Gothic kingdom by right of Egilona, acknowledged as their queen by all the Christians.

      Now Suleiman, a new Caliph, was on the throne, and it so happened that he cherished a deep hatred against Mousa, whom he had divested of all his high commands in favour of the One-Eyed, who had brought rich spoil to Damascus.

      The Caliph waited for no proofs, he wanted none. It was enough that Abdul-asis was accused, and that his death would be the heaviest punishment he could inflict on the unfortunate Mousa.

      When the fatal scroll was laid before Ayub the parchment dropped from his hand.

      “Allah is great!” cried he, as soon as words came to him. “It is known of all men I have taken no part in my cousin’s marriage; rather that I have always opposed it. Beware, said I, of the seductions of love. Avoid the strange woman upon whose face is written an evil fate. As long as I could I counselled him well, as I СКАЧАТЬ