"I tell thee, my boy Jacinto," went on the cavalier, "wounds or no wounds, jailed or not jailed, I am in a perplexity of mind, which, if thou art able, I must command, or, what is the same thing, beseech thee to remove. First, therefore, what house is this? and where is it? (whether on the isle Mexico, the lake side, the new world, or the old, or, indeed, in any part of the earth at all?) Secondly, how got'st thou into it? Thirdly, how came I hither myself?—and especially, what good Christian did snatch my body out of the paws of those roaring lions, the Mexicans, when I was hit that foul and assassin-like blow by—by——"
"Señor," said the page, not doubting but that his patron had paused for want of breath, "to answer all these questions, is more than I am allowed. All that I can say, is, that if prudent and obedient, (I say obedient, noble and dear master," continued the boy archly, "for now you are my prisoner,) you are safer in this dungeon than are your Spanish friends in their fortress,—reduced to captivity, indeed, but preserved from destruction——"
"By the false, traitorous, and most ungrateful knave, Abdalla, thy father!" exclaimed the neophyte, with a loud and stern voice; for just as he had hesitated to wound the ears of the boy, he beheld, slowly stalking into the apartment, and eyeing him over Jacinto's shoulder, the Almogavar himself; and the epithets of indignation burst at once from his lips. Jacinto started back, alarmed; but Abdalla approached, and regarding the wounded cavalier with an unmoved countenance, motioned the boy to retire.—In an instant the Moor of Barbary and the Spaniard of Castile were left alone together.
"Shall I repeat my words, thou base and cut-throat infidel?" cried Don Amador, rising so far as to place his feet on the floor, though still sitting on the platform which supported his mattress, and speaking with the most cutting anger. "Was it not enough, that thou wert a renegade to the rest, but thou must raise thy Judas-hand against thy benefactor?"
"My benefactor indeed!" said Abdoul calmly, and with the most musical utterance of his voice. "Though I wear the livery of the pagans;" (He had on an armed tunic, somewhat similar to that of Quauhtimotzin, though without a plume to his head, and looked not unlike to a Mexican warrior of high degree;) "and though I am, by birth, the natural enemy of thee and thine, yet have I not forgot that thou art my benefactor! I remember, that, when a brutal soldier struck at me with his lance, thy hand was raised to protect me from the shame; I remember, when a thousand weapons were darting at my prostrate body on the pyramid of Zempoala, that thou didst not disdain to preserve me; I remember, that, when I fled from the anger of Don Hernan, thou offeredst me thine intercession. Señor, I have forgotten none of this; nor have I forgotten," he went on, with earnest gratitude, "that, to these favours, thou didst add the greater ones, of shielding my feeble child from stripes, from ruin, and perhaps from death. This have I not forgotten, this can I never forget! The name of Spaniard is a curse on my ears; I hate thy people, and, when God gives me help, I will slay, even to the last man! but I remember, that thou art my benefactor, and the benefactor of my child."
"And dost thou think," said the neophyte, "that these oily words will blind me to thy baseness? or that they can deceive me into belief, when thy actions have so foully belied them? Cursed art thou, misbelieving Moor! an ingrate and apostate; and, had I no cause, in mine own person, to know thy perfidy, it should be enough to blazon thy villany, that thou hast, on thine own confession, deserted the standard of Christ, and the arms of Spain, to enlist in the ranks of their pagan foes!"
"The standard of Christ," said the Moor, with emphasis, "waves not over the heads of the Spaniards, but the banner of a fiend, bloody, unjust, and accursed, whom they call by His holy name, and who bids them to defile and destroy; while the Redeemer proclaimeth only good-will and peace to all men. Have thy good heart and thy strong mind been so deluded? Canst thou, in truth, believe, that these oppressors of a harmless people, these slayers, who raise the cross of heaven on the place of blood, and call to God for approval, when their hands are smoking with the blood of his creatures, are the followers of Christ the peaceful, Christ the just, Christ the holy? These friends whom thou hast followed, are not Christians; and God, whom they traduce and belie in all their actions, has given them over to the punishment of hypocrites and blasphemers, to sufferings miserable and unparalleled, to deaths dreadful and memorable! May it be accomplished,—Amen!"
"Dost thou speak this to me, vile Almogavar! of my friends and countrymen? Dost thou curse them thus in my presence, most unworthy apostate?"
"Sorrowful be their doom, and quickly may it come upon them!" cried Abdalla, with ferocious fervour, "for what are they, that it should not be just? and what am I, that I should not pray that it be accomplished? I remember the days of Granada! I remember the sack of the Alhambra! I remember the slaughter of the Alpujarras! and I have not forgotten the mourning exiles, driven from those green hills, to die among the sands of Africa, the clime of their fathers, but to them a land of strangers! I remember me how the lowly were given to the scourge, and the princely to the fires of Inquisitors,—our children to spears, our wives to ravishers and murderers!—Cursed be they that did these things, even to the last generation!"
The cavalier was amazed and confounded at the vehement and lofty indignation of the Morisco; and as the form of Abdoul-al-Sidi swelled with wrath, and his countenance darkened under the gloomy recollection, he seemed to Don Amador rather like one of those mountain princes, who had defied the conquerors, to the last, among the Alpujarras, than a poor herdsman of Fez, deriving his knowledge, and his fury, only from the incitations of exiles. His embarrassment was also increased by a secret consciousness, that the Moor had cause for his hate and his denunciations. He answered him, however, with a severe voice:—