Charles Sellers

“ The white man gains the love of the lady of his choice by deeds of arms; he bears on his lance the banner embroidered by his lady-love, and, as a true knight, he makes verses in her honour.”
“Chivalry, as you understand it, is to me a fable; for if one of your pale-faced knights risk his life, it is on behalf of his family pride, although he may mention his lady-love’s name with his dying breath; but if a slave lay down his life for his master or mistress, it is only reckoned a part of his duty,” urged the slave. ”

“ These words were spoken in a haughty manner; and as Al-muli turned round and looked upon his splendidly arrayed soldiers, who surrounded the chamber, his pride seemed justified.
“Thou canst not crush me more than thou hast done, vile Moor,” said the baron. “Thou hast robbed me of my daughter, not by force of arms, but stealthily, as a thief at midnight. If any spark of chivalry warmed thy infidel blood thou wouldst blush for the act thou hast wrought. But I fear thee not, proud Moor; thy warriors are no braver than thy women. Dare them to move, and I will lay thee at my feet.” ”

“ By what should I know him?”
“He took his white charger with its golden trappings with him,” answered Lady Clare. “On his lance he bore a red pennon; a tress of my hair served him for a belt, from which hung his sword. But if thou hast not seen him, Knight of the Cross, then woe be to me, lonely widow, for I have three daughters, and they are all unmarried.”
“I am a soldier,” continued the knight; “war is my employment. But what wouldst thou give, fair lady, to have thy husband near?” ”

“ No sooner had he finished speaking than he fell dead and his wicked wife also, and I was turned into a cat; my lover, Haroun, and all my young friends were turned into stone, and my servants were stricken deaf and dumb. Many a brave knight has been here to try and deliver me; but they all failed, because they only trusted in themselves, and were therefore defeated. But thou, gallant knight, didst trust more on the Cross than on thyself, and thou hast freed me. I am, therefore, the prize of thy good sword; deal with me as thou wilt. ”

“ Having approached Mobarec, they prostrated themselves before him, and were at first very much afraid; but hearing him address the mule in a grand speech, they rose and listened.
“Sir,” said Mobarec to the mule, “I feel highly flattered by this ovation, and I confer on you here the post of principal minister, which you richly deserve for the sagacity you have shown in preserving silence when all want to make themselves heard. You will see that the poor are provided for, and that they provide for the wants of their king and his chosen ministers, of which you are the chief. ”

“ In this Alhambra did my predecessors enjoy the company of their wives; and am I to be denied this natural comfort?”
[30] “Royal master,” said the barber, “in those days the magic mirror was unknown and not so much required. Men then only studied the arts, but now is science added to their studies.”
“You mean, then,” asked the king, “that an increase in knowledge has done no good?”
“I mean more than that,” continued the barber; “I mean that people are worse than they used to be.”
“‘God is great!’ is what these walls proclaim; to know is to be wise,” urged the king. ”

“ Maria was the daughter of a very wealthy farmer who resided close to the mouth of the river Minho. It was her duty to work with the farm labourers in the field, and she would mingle her sweet voice with theirs when singing hymns to the Virgin as they plied their hoes.
Often had Al Rachid seen her at work from his hiding-place in a neighbouring forest. He loved the maiden, although he had reason to believe she was a Christian; but he knew that she had given her love to another, and could, therefore, not be his unless he took her by force. ”

“ The poor slave was very sorrowful when he heard the princess, whom he loved so dearly, [36] threaten to have him punished. “Death is the leveller of all ranks and of all races,” said he; “the dust of the dead white man and of the nigger are alike; in death, the king is no more than the beggar. I will run away from this palace and seek refuge in the northern provinces, where, if the climate be colder, they say the hearts of the people are warmer.” ”

“ Come hither, my vassals, and punish this rude soldier!” exclaimed Lady Clare.
“Do not call for thy vassals, for they are mine also,” said the knight; “and do not be angry with me, for I have already kissed thee.” ”

“ They were all accusing each other of being the first wounded; so that, in utter despair, the king declared his daughter should be married to the [15] Church, enter a convent, and thus hide her transcendent beauty.
“No, father,” exclaimed the ugly princess; “I will get a husband; and if in all the states of Spain no one be found worthy enough to be my husband, I will leave Spain for ever. There is a country where the day never dawns, and night is eternal. Thither will I go; for in the dark, as all cats are gray, so are all degrees of beauty brought to one common level. ”

“ THE INGENIOUS STUDENT. There was once a student in Tuy who was so very poor that, if faith in Providence be not reckoned, he possessed no riches.
But Juan Rivas was endowed with a wonderfully fine gift of ingenuity, and although he was somewhat behind in the payment for the Masses on behalf of his predecessors, and even more so with his mundane creditors, still was he a man who meant well and would do the right thing if he only had the opportunity.
To the man of the world there is no greater pleasure than to pay his debts, for by so doing he increases his credit. ”

“ But it will so happen that sometimes an enchanted Moor, with more cunning than [18] honesty, will get through one of the windows on the birth of a child, and will brand the infant with the crescent on his shoulder or arm, in which case it is well known that the child, on certain nights, will be changed into a wolf.
The enchanted Moors have their castles and palaces under the ground or beneath the rivers, and they wander about the earth, seeing but not seen; for they died unbaptized, and have, therefore, no rest in the grave. ”

“ But cruel is my case.”
“Is it even so,” said Pedro to himself, “that this lovely maiden is the daughter of a king? If I render her assistance I may incur great danger, and if I leave her to die it will be a crying shame; what, then, am I to do?”
As he was thus pondering in his mind, he heard a flapping of wings, and, looking in the direction whence the noise came, he saw a pair of perfectly white pigeons bearing a small basket between them, strung on a thin golden bar, which they held at each end between their beaks. ”

“ The king and the princess were highly flattered; but as Prince Alanbam continued obdurate in his professions of bashfulness, they commenced to feel somewhat vexed, and at last the king said in a loud voice—
“Prince Alanbam, we fully appreciate the motive that prompts your conduct, but the fact is the Princess Altamira is present to be wedded to you; and, as a Christian king, the first of my line, I desire to lead to the altar my only daughter, Princess Altamira, and her affianced husband, Prince Alanbam.”
“It cannot be,” said the prince. “I would rather marry some one less beautiful. ”

“ The more he struck at the frog, the more fierce were the flames of fire it emitted; and Al Rachid, hearing the noise, hurried to the entrance to see what was the matter, when he found himself enveloped in flames which the heretic forced the frog to throw out until the cruel Moor was completely burned.
Then at one stroke he cut off the animal’s head, and at the same moment the castle vanished, and where it had previously stood the heretic found Maria, the farmer’s daughter, who was overjoyed at her deliverance. ”

“ Nor am I slow to recognize in thy race a knowledge of the arts and sciences not yet extended to the Christian. Yet, for all this, thou art but an infidel. Let me but baptize thee with the water thou wouldst have drunk, and all will yet be well.”
“No, sir saint,” answered the Moor. “When in my castle strangers thus treat me rudely, I can die, but not bend to their orders. If yonder [57] baron is a true Christian, why has he not taken the thirty-three baths enjoined by thee?”
“And if my father do take them, wilt thou, as thou didst promise me,” said Alina, “be converted to the true faith?” ”

“ The sole condition imposed on those who desired to become Queen of Granada was made known, and was much ridiculed, as may naturally be supposed; but, strange to say, no woman applied to the barber to have a look into the mirror.
Days and weeks went by, but the king was no nearer getting a wife. Some generous ladies would try and prevail on their lady friends to make the trial, but none seemed ambitious of the honour.
The king, be it known, was a very handsome man, and was beloved by all his subjects for his many virtues ”

“ The princess was naturally very anxious to [44] see her future husband, but etiquette forbade her doing so. Often had she thought of her runaway slave and lover. Absence had made her fonder of him, and little by little he had grown less black to her imagination.
At last the wedding-day arrived. Mobarec, attended by all his court, proceeded to the princess’s palace, dressed in magnificent apparel, his strong black arms bare, but with splendid gold bracelets round them, and a belt of the same metal round his waist. ”

“ Not the three wives who got up from their graves in Merida and appeared to the husband to whom they had all been married, produced a more startling effect on that widower than D. Barbara on her husband Sebastian, when she would visit him as he was tending his herds on the mountain sides, for no woman ever had such a tongue. Even the Archbishop of Compostella, in pity to the clergy of his diocese, had ordained that D. Barbara needed no confession. He absolved her from all sin for the love and veneration she had for St. Vincent, but blamed the good saint for the mercy he had shown D. Barbara. ”

“ And if, after many a sanguinary fight, the Cross was victorious over the Crescent, the Christian population of the Iberic Peninsula must admit that the faint vestiges of beauty in their architecture of to-day have an Arabic origin; that to their Moorish conquerors they owe much of the daring and endurance which characterized the generation of great navigators, as also to them was due the introduction of many of the useful arts and sciences. ”

“ The traveller will now look in vain for the alcazar of El Rachid at Freixo. The mighty rocks alone mark the spot, and naught remains of art to please the eye. Traditionary lore may [126] interest him, but he must be ready to listen to it with all the additions which a gross superstition can alone invent or believe.
Here, then, is it recorded that Al Rachid held a Christian maiden captive for many years. That she was as good as she was beautiful goes without further remark. ”

“ The king was very much pleased with her appearance, and received her very kindly, telling her that if she desired to be his wife she would have to gaze into the magic mirror, and if she had done aught which was not consistent with her maidenly character, the mirror [32] would show as many stains on its surface as there might be blemishes on her heart.
“Sir,” replied the maiden, “we are all sinners in the sight of God, they say; but I am a poor shepherdess, and surrounded by my flock. ”

“ Elvira and Alaric were led among a strong body of men, and everything [168] was being prepared for burning the lovers, when Elvira’s old tutor presented himself before Wamba, and said—
“Know, O king, that thy daughter fears not death, for her comfort is on the Cross, and not on the Crescent. If any one be to blame, I am he, for I instructed her. Let me, then, be burned in her stead.”
Wamba gazed fiercely at the old man, and, raising his massive olive staff surmounted by a gold crown, exclaimed—
“Thou shalt also die, but not before thou hast witnessed her sufferings. ”

“ Every morning the king would ask the barber if any young lady had ventured on looking into the mirror; but the answer was always the same—that many watched his shop to see if others went there, but none had ventured in.
“Ah, Granada, Granada!” exclaimed the king; “hast thou no daughter to offer thy king? ”

“ Yes, Joanna is too good for me and for this world; but we don’t make ourselves—no, we don’t do that.”
Here José Carcunda shook his head very wisely, and looked at his slippered feet with some pardonable pride.
“Look you here,” said one of his fair companions, “you are very stupid to-day; you will [71] not sing, nor will you dance. Will you, then, tell us the tale about the sorrowful mule, and what befell her, or about the merry friar who turned highwayman to enrich the Church, or about the palaces of the enchanted Moors?” ”