he East have woven this banner from the rays of benignant stars. It
shall beam before thee in the front of battle--it shall rise over the
rivers of Christian blood. As the moon sways the bosom of the tides, it
shall sway and direct the surges and the course of war!"

"Man of mystery! thou hast given me a new life."

"And, fighting by thy side," resumed Almamen, "I will assist to carve
out for thee, from the ruins of Arragon and Castile, the grandeur of
a new throne. Arm, monarch of Granada!--arm! I hear the neigh of thy
charger, in the midst of the mailed thousands! Arm!"

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER. I. LEILA IN THE CASTLE--THE SIEGE.

The calmer contemplations and more holy anxieties of Leila were, at
length, broken in upon by intelligence, the fearful interest of which
absorbed the whole mind and care of every inhabitant of the castle.
Boabdil el Chico had taken the field, at the head of a numerous army.
Rapidly scouring the country, he had descended, one after one, upon the
principal fortresses, which Ferdinand had left, strongly garrisoned,
in the immediate neighbourhood. His success was as immediate as it was
signal; the terror of his arms began, once more to spread far and wide;
every day swelled his ranks with new recruits; and from the snow-clad
summits of the Sierra Nevada poured down, in wild hordes, the fierce
mountain race, who, accustomed to eternal winter, made a strange
contrast, in their rugged appearance and shaggy clothing, to the
glittering and civilised soldiery of Granada.

Moorish towns, which had submitted to Ferdinand, broke from their
allegiance, and sent their ardent youth and experienced veterans to the
standard of the Keys and Crescent. To add to the sudden panic of the
Spaniards, it went forth that a formidable magician, who seemed inspired
rather with the fury of a demon than the valour of a man, had made an
abrupt appearance in the ranks of the Moslems. Wherever the Moors shrank
back from wall or tower, down which poured the boiling pitch, or rolled
the deadly artillery of the besieged, this sorcerer--rushing into the
midst of the flagging force, and waving, with wild gestures, a white
banner, supposed by both Moor and Christian to be the work of magic and
preternatural spells--dared every danger, and escaped every weapon: with
voice, with prayer, with example, he fired the Moors to an enthusiasm
that revived the first days of Mohammedan conquest; and tower after
tower, along