omposed of some chosen soldiers of Isabel's own body-guard, after
traversing the camp, winding along that part of the mountainous defile
which was in the possession of the Spaniards, and ascending a high and
steep acclivity, halted before the gates of a strongly fortified castle
renowned in the chronicles of that memorable war. The hoarse challenge
of the sentry, the grating of jealous bars, the clanks of hoofs upon
the rough pavement of the courts, and the streaming glare of
torches--falling upon stern and bearded visages, and imparting a ruddier
glow to the moonlit buttresses and battlements of the fortress--aroused
Leila from a kind of torpor rather than sleep, in which the fatigue and
excitement of the day had steeped her senses. An old seneschal conducted
her, through vast and gloomy halls (how unlike the brilliant chambers
and fantastic arcades of her Moorish home) to a huge Gothic apartment,
hung with the arras of Flemish looms. In a few moments, maidens, hastily
aroused from slumber, grouped around her with a respect which would
certainly not have been accorded had her birth and creed been known.
They gazed with surprise at her extraordinary beauty and foreign garb,
and evidently considered the new guest a welcome addition to the scanty
society of the castle. Under any other circumstances, the strangeness
of all she saw, and the frowning gloom of the chamber to which she was
consigned, would have damped the spirits of one whose destiny had so
suddenly passed from the deepest quiet into the sternest excitement. But
any change was a relief to the roar of the camp, the addresses of the
prince, and the ominous voice and countenance of Torquemada; and
Leila looked around her, with the feeling that the queen's promise was
fulfilled, and that she was already amidst the blessings of shelter and
repose. It was long, however, before sleep revisited her eyelids, and
when she woke the noonday sun streamed broadly through the lattice.
By the bedside sat a matron advanced in years, but of a mild and
prepossessing countenance, which only borrowed a yet more attractive
charm from an expression of placid and habitual melancholy. She was
robed in black; but the rich pearls that were interwoven in the sleeves
and stomacher, the jewelled cross that was appended from a chain
of massive gold, and, still more, a certain air of dignity and
command,--bespoke, even to the inexperienced eye of Leila, the evidence
of superior station.

"Th