which
often, instead of healing the lacerated heart, serves but to increase
the torture of the wound.

The kind females, therefore, led Theodora to view the interior of the
palace, which, from its venerable antiquity, and the interesting relics
of Moorish taste and ornament it contained, afforded a subject for
curious investigation. The quaint and fantastic carvings of the cornices
of the grand saloon, together with its Arabic devices and decorations,
and the mosaic pavement, harmonized strangely with the armorial bearings
and heavily grouped emblems of Christian panoplies.

Theodora gazed on these warlike trophies with a listless indifference,
but when she came to a long gallery hung round with pictures, both of
Christian and Moorish subjects, her feelings were powerfully excited,
and she beheld those living mockeries of departed greatness with a deep
sensation of awe. Many a picture was there which recorded the faded
splendour of the Moslems. Many a scene of the chivalrous tales and
amours of the valiant Gazul and the love-smitten Lindaraxa, and other
characters now highly prized in Moorish legend. These scenes of private
and individual interest were artificially mixed with other
representations of a more general and dignified nature. Battles and
sieges and valorous deeds of Mahomedan warriors were gaudily portrayed
by the Moorish artist, who had taken care to bestow with his pencil a
gratuitous splendor upon the exploits of his countrymen, as they passed
in review under his hand. These works were succeeded by others of a very
different character, in which the Christian artist had ingeniously taken
the hint from his Mahomedan rival, and had fairly outdone the infidel in
the fierce and indomitable expression of his heroes.

These were followed by a series of portraits, both of living personages
and others who were long since dead. Amongst these, Theodora saw the
mighty form of Alonso de Aguilar, on whose noble countenance was stamped
that commanding expression which brought vividly to her memory the image
of his daughter Leonor. There also stood as in life the renowned and
terrible Ruy Diaz de Vivar, surnamed _El Cid Campeador_,[31] mounted on
his scarcely less celebrated charger Babieca, both actively engaged in
the destruction of their Moorish enemies; for it is a received
tradition that the animal had an instinctive horror and abhorrence of
the infidels, and accordingly never lost an opportunity of exhibiting
tow