y father?"

"Alas!" answered Leila, almost fainting with terror at this rude and
menacing address, "he is, in truth, mine only parent."

"And his faith--his religion?"

"I have never beheld him pray."

"Hem! he never prays--a noticeable fact. But of what sect, what creed,
does he profess himself?"

"I cannot answer thee."

"Nay, there be means that may wring from thee an answer. Maiden, be
not so stubborn; speak! thinkest thou he serves the temple of the
Mohammedan?"

"No! oh, no!" answered poor Leila, eagerly, deeming that her reply, in
this, at least, would be acceptable. "He disowns, he scorns, he abhors,
the Moorish faith,--even," she added, "with too fierce a zeal."

"Thou dost not share that zeal, then? Well, worships he in secret after
the Christian rites?"

Leila hung her head and answered not.

"I understand thy silence. And in what belief, maiden, wert thou reared
beneath his roof?"

"I know not what it is called among men," answered Leila, with firmness,
"but it is the faith of the ONE GOD, who protects His chosen, and shall
avenge their wrongs--the God who made earth and heaven; and who, in an
idolatrous and benighted world, transmitted the knowledge of Himself
and His holy laws, from age to age, through the channel of one solitary
people, in the plains of Palestine, and by the waters of the Hebron."

"And in that faith thou wert trained, maiden, by thy father?" said the
Dominican, calmly. "I am satisfied. Rest here, in peace: we may meet
again, soon."

The last words were spoken with a soft and tranquil smile--a smile in
which glazing eyes and agonising hearts had often beheld the ghastly
omen of the torture and the stake.

On quitting the unfortunate Leila, the monk took his way towards the
neighbouring tent of Ferdinand. But, ere he reached it, a new thought
seemed to strike the holy man; he altered the direction of his steps,
and gained one of those little shrines common in Catholic countries, and
which had been hastily built of wood, in the centre of a small copse,
and by the side of a brawling rivulet, towards the back of the king's
pavilion. But one solitary sentry, at the entrance of the copse, guarded
the consecrated place; and its exceeding loneliness and quiet were a
grateful contrast to the animated world of the surrounding camp. The
monk entered the shrine, and fell down on his knees before an image of
the Virgin, rudely sculptured, indeed, but richly decorated.

"Ah, Holy Mo