opposite side of the road, and stood in the shadow of
a ruined archway.

He now remarked a light from a window in the tower. It was fitful and
changeable; commonly feeble and yellowish, as if from a lamp; with an
occasional glare of some vivid metallic colour, followed by a dusky
glow. A column of dense smoke would now and then rise in the air, and
hang like a canopy over the tower. There was altogether such a
loneliness and seeming mystery about the building and its inhabitants,
that Antonio was half inclined to indulge the country people's
notions, and to fancy it the den of some powerful sorcerer, and the
fair damsel he had seen to be some spell-bound beauty.

After some time had elapsed, a light appeared in the window where he
had seen the beautiful arm. The curtain was down, but it was so thin
that he could perceive the shadow of some one passing and repassing
between it and the light. He fancied that he could distinguish that
the form was delicate; and, from the alacrity of its movements, it was
evidently youthful. He had not a doubt but this was the bed-chamber of
his beautiful unknown.

Presently he heard the sound of a guitar, and a female voice singing.
He drew near cautiously, and listened. It was a plaintive Moorish
ballad, and he recognized in it the lamentations of one of the
Abencerrages on leaving the walls of lovely Granada. It was full of
passion and tenderness. It spoke of the delights of early life; the
hours of love it had enjoyed on the banks of the Darro, and among the
blissful abodes of the Alhambra. It bewailed the fallen honours of the
Abencerrages, and imprecated vengeance on their oppressors. Antonio
was affected by the music. It singularly coincided with the place. It
was like the voice of past times echoed in the present, and breathing
among the monuments of its departed glory.

The voice ceased; after a time the light disappeared, and all was
still. "She sleeps!" said Antonio, fondly. He lingered about the
building, with the devotion with which a lover lingers about the bower
of sleeping beauty. The rising moon threw its silver beams on the gray
walls, and glittered on the casement. The late gloomy landscape
gradually became flooded with its radiance. Finding, therefore, that
he could no longer move about in obscurity, and fearful that his
loiterings might be observed, he reluctantly retired.

The curiosity which had at first drawn the young man to the tower, was
now seconded by fee