"Didst thou see aught there that was remarkable, or in any way inexplicable?"
"I saw my lord fainting, my father and the princes flying, and the soldiers pursuing and shooting both with cross-bow and musket."
"'Tis already," said the cavalier, turning his eye askaunt to Don Gabriel, "yet I know not by what revealment, whispered through the army, that my kinsman saw a spectre,—some devilish fiend, that, in the moment of his doubt, struck him to the earth!"
"Ay!" said Jacinto, turning towards the knight, and eyeing him with a look of horror; "he thought 'twas Zayda, whom he slew so barbarously among the Alpujarras!"
The cavalier laid his hand upon Jacinto's shoulder, sternly,—
"What art thou saying?—what art thou thinking? Hast thou caught some of the silly fabrications of the soldiers? I warn thee to be guarded, when thou speakest of thy master."
"He confessed it to me!" said the page, trembling but not at the anger of his patron. "He killed her with his own hands, when she screened from his cruel rage her husband Alharef, his vowed and true friend!"
"Peace!—thou art mad!—'Twas the raving of his delirium.—There is no such being as Zayda."
"There is not, but there was," said Jacinto, mournfully.
"And how knowest thou that?" demanded Amador, quickly. "Thou speakest as if she had been thy kinswoman. Art thou indeed a conjuror? There is no dark and hidden story, with which thou dost not seem acquainted!"