In another place: O God! to thee belong eternal thanksgiving and undying praise.
Elsewhere there are verses from the Koran and entire poems in praise of the caliphs.
We stood some minutes in silent admiration; not the buzz of a fly was heard; now and then Gongora started toward the tower, but I clutched him by the arm and felt that he was trembling with impatience.
"But we must make haste," said he, finally, "or else we shall not get back to Granada before evening."
"What do I know of Granada?" I answered; "what do I know of morning or evening or of myself? I am in the Orient!"
"But this is only the antechamber of the Alhambra, my dear Arabian," said Gongora, urging me forward. "Come, come with me where it will really seem like being in the Orient."
And he led me, reluctant though I was, to the very threshold of the tower-door. There I turned to look once more at the Court of Myrtles and gave a cry of surprise. Between two slender columns of the arched gallery which faces the tower, on the opposite side of the courtyard, stood a girl, a beautiful dark Andalusian face, with a white mantle wound around her head and falling over her shoulder: she stood leaning upon the railing in a languid attitude, with her eyes fixed upon us. I cannot tell the fantastic effect produced by that figure at that moment—the grace imparted by the arch which curved above the girl's head and the two columns which formed a frame around her, and the beautiful harmony which she gave to the whole court, as if she were an ornament necessary to its architecture conceived in the mind of the architect at the moment he imagined the whole design. She seemed like a sultana awaiting her lord, thinking of another sky and another love. She continued looking at us, and my heart began to beat faster. I questioned my friend with my eyes, as if to be assured that I was not deceived. Suddenly the sultana laughed, dropped her white mantle, and disappeared.
"She is a servant," said Gongora.
Still I remained in the mist.
She was, in fact, a servant of the custodian of the Alhambra who was in the habit of practising that joke upon strangers.