At the period of his expulsion from the city, his wife had been dead some time, and his daughter had just reached the age when a maiden’s footsteps most require the guidance of a mother’s care. But Hinzára was a being of no common order. The rosebud bursting through the petals of its mossy calyx, spreading its delicious fragrance to the summer breeze, exceeds not more in loveliness every other flower of the field, than the beauty of Hinzára surpassed that of all the maidens of the neighbourhood. To you, Don Carlos, whose eyes are daily feasted on the charms of our comely Andalusians, it will suffice to say, that in the daughter of Abenhabuz were combined the regular features and soft expression of the dark-eyed Malagueña; the blooming cheek and polished brow of the fair Serrana[105] of Casarabonela; and the form and carriage of the graceful Gaditana![106] Her person, in fact, was a bouquet, of the choicest flowers culled from this our Hesperian garden; whilst her mind might be likened to a book, in which, as in the pages of our incomparable Cervantes, were to be found united the most brilliant wit, the soundest discretion, the purest sentiment, and the nicest judgment.
Courted by all the principal chieftains of the day—Spaniards as well as Moriscoes—Hinzára appeared alike regardless of their adulation, and unmoved by their importunity. But the Moorish maiden was not insensible, and—unknown to all besides—had pledged her hand to a noble Biscayian youth, long the possessor of her guileless heart.
The ancestors of Don Ramiro—for such was her lover’s appellation—though rich in deeds of renown, had left him little else than an untarnished sword, to support the glorious names of Segastibelza y Bigorre which he inherited from them. And besides his poverty, Hinzára had other reasons (which will be stated as I proceed with my tale) to fear that her father’s consent to their union would not be easily obtained.
Abenhabuz was, to all appearance, fully sensible of the generosity that had been so manifestly shown to him; and though now the possessor of but the few vineyards and olive grounds that encircled his quinta, he was nevertheless generally considered a wealthy man:—a reputation for which he was as much indebted to his imagined knowledge of Alchymy, as for the hords he was supposed to have collected during a long life of rapine and plunder.
This character for wealth, whilst it excited the cupidity of many, secured to him the protection of the governor of Ronda, Don Guiterre Mondejar; who, captivated by the charms of the beauteous Hinzára, hoped, together with her hand, to obtain, what he coveted yet more, the imaginary treasures of the Alchymist.
The crafty Moor readily promised him the immediate possession of the one, and the inheritance of the other; but he had no intention of fulfilling his engagements. The protection of a powerful friend was needful for a time, to screen his proceedings from a too-vigilant observation; particularly, since the establishment of the Holy Inquisition by Ferdinand and Isabella of blessed memory (here the worthy Father crossed himself most devoutly) was a thorn in the side of these backsliding Christians that obliged them to be extremely circumspect; but the implacable Abenhabuz cherished hopes of wreaking vengeance on those by whom he chose to conceive he had been wronged; and the Spanish governor was one of his marked victims.
In the prosecution of his horrible designs, the Moor was prepared to immolate even his own daughter to satisfy his revenge; though this was an extremity to which he hoped not to be driven. It may, however, be readily imagined that his stock of parental affection was not very great, and that he concerned himself but little in his daughter’s affairs. He enjoined her to be strict in the outward observance of her religious duties, the better to conceal his own delinquency; but of her actual conversion to Christianity, and her acquaintance with Don Ramiro, he was altogether ignorant.
For a considerable time, Abenhabuz succeeded, under various pretences, in deferring the fulfilment of his contract with Don Guiterre; but, at length, finding his projects of vengeance not yet ripe for execution, and that the amorous Spaniard was becoming every day more urgent for the possession of Hinzára, he determined to overcome the few weak qualms of conscience that had hitherto withheld him from sacrificing his daughter, and intimated to her that she was shortly to become the wife of the abhorred Guiterre. To his surprise, however—for it was for the first time in her life—Hinzára refused obedience to his will. Commands and entreaties were alike unavailing:—to the first she opposed a calm but resolute refusal; to the latter a flood of tears. But when the infuriated father employed threats, and assailed her with invectives,—“Hold!” exclaimed the daughter of the cross. “Though, in casting off the execrable heresy of Mohammed, I cast not off my Moslem father, yet in embracing this,” and she drew from her bosom a small gold crucifix, “I obtained a Protector against all outrage; and should he at the cost of my plighted word,—my word, for the observance of which I have pledged my belief in a crucified redeemer—persist in exacting obedience to his will; amongst the Holy Sisterhood of Santa Ursula shall I seek, and readily find, a refuge from his tyranny.”
The Infidel was thunderstruck—his rage unbounded. Scarcely admitting that a woman had a soul to be saved, he had thought it mattered little whether his daughter was a Mohammedan or a Christian; conceiving that, in either case, her duty to him prescribed passive obedience. But he had always imagined that Hinzára’s abjuration of Islamism, like his own, was a mere mockery, and that he should find in her a willing instrument to work his purpose of taking vengeance on his Christian rulers. Awakened now to a sense of his error,—and as he considered of his danger—he feared that she might, on the contrary, prove an insuperable bar to the execution of his plans; and he determined to lose no time in removing her.
Dissimulation was, however, necessary. Smothering, therefore, his anger, he affected to be moved by her tears. He alluded no more to the marriage contract entered into with Don Guiterre; and, treating her with more than wonted kindness, lulled her into forgetfulness of his former harshness, whilst he matured the most hellish plot that ever was conceived by man, to render her subservient to his designs.