vice. Leaving her for a moment he
requested her to wait for his answer. He then went out and prayed
fervently for her son's release, and telling the mother what he had
done, dismissed her. Some time after the mother came back with her son
to thank Baki for his pious interference, which had procured her son's
release. The son then told his story:--"I was the king's slave, and used
to go out daily with my brother slaves to certain works on which we were
employed. One day, as we were going I felt all of a sudden as if my
fetters were being knocked off. I looked down to my feet, when lo! I
saw the heavy irons fall down broken on each side." The inspector
naturally charged him with trying to escape, but he denied on oath,
saying that his fetters had fallen off without his knowing how. They
were then riveted on again with additional nails, but again fell off.
The youth goes on:--"The Christians then consulted their priests on the
miraculous occurrence, and one of them came to me and inquired whether I
had a father. I said 'No, but I have a mother.' Well, then, said the
priest to the Christians, 'God, no doubt, has listened to her prayers.
Set him at liberty,'" which was immediately done. As a set-off to this
there is a remarkable instance of freedom from superstition recorded of
King Almundhir(881-2).[8] On the occasion of an earthquake, the people
being greatly alarmed, and looking upon it as a direct interposition of
God, this enlightened prince did his best to convince them that such
things were natural phenomena, and had no relation to the good or evil
that men did,[9] shewing that the earth trembled for Christian and
Moslem alike, for the most innocent as well as the most injurious of
creatures without distinction. They, however, refused to be convinced.

[1] See the story of Atahulphus, Bishop of Compostella, and the
bull--Alfonso of Burgos, ch. 66: a man swallowed up by the
earth--Mariana, viii. 4: Sancho the Great's arm withered and
restored--_Ibid._, c. 10: a Sabellian heretic carried off by
the devil in sight of a large congregation--Isidore of Beja,
sec. 69: the miracle of the roses (1050)--Mar. ix. 3.

[2] Cardonne, i. p. 72.

[3] _Ibid_, p. 38.

[4] See Ockley.

[5] Gibbon, "for such are the manufacture of every religion,"
p. 115.

[6] See Geddes, Miscell. Tracts, "an account of MSS. and relics
found at Granada." But we must remember that these miraculous