The prince took his departure amidst mutual expressions of esteem which, inspired by the profound dissimulation of both parties, seemed to promise the most amicable intercourse for the future between suzerain and vassal. The satisfaction of the Berbers was soon increased by the arrival of messengers from Motadhid charged with the delivery of costly and beautiful gifts as tokens of the appreciative friendship of their sovereign. Several months elapsed; assurances of amity continued to be reciprocally transmitted between the palaces of Seville and Ronda, until, by every plausible artifice, the unsuspicious Berbers were lulled into delusive security. Then the governors of Ronda, Moron, and Xeres were invited, with much ceremony, to partake of the hospitality of Motadhid. Their attendants increased the party to the number of sixty persons, splendidly mounted and equipped; and the gay cavalcade was welcomed at the gates of Seville with the cordial greetings of the prince and the acclamations of the people. Among Moslems the first courtesy extended to a guest is the offer of a bath. It therefore excited no suspicion among the Berber nobles when they were conducted—with the single exception of Moadh, who, in the momentary confusion, was, for the time, designedly separated from his companions—into a series of magnificent vaulted chambers, whose walls were encased with precious marbles, whose windows were formed of painted glass, and whose floors and ceilings sparkled with exquisite mosaics. In order to enjoy freedom from all restraint, their own slaves attended them. The intolerable and increasing heat caused the latter before long to attempt to open the door. They found it fastened; by dint of superhuman effort it was finally broken down, but behind it, as if by magic, had arisen a massive wall of masonry; egress was seen to be impossible; and the meditated treachery of the Africans was fearfully avenged. The next day sixty steaming corpses were taken out of the bath, whose apartments had been heated to a temperature far exceeding that ordinarily maintained in an oven. The power of the Berber faction was hopelessly impaired; a new terror invested the name of the sanguinary Motadhid; and an unusual number of grisly but precious and long-coveted trophies was deposited in the charnel-like caskets preserved among the treasures of the palace.
The anxiety and suspicions of Moadh had been aroused by his evidently preconcerted separation from his friends. When their fate was announced to him, it required all the address and condescension Motadhid could command to soothe his grief and remove his apprehensions. His inestimable service to the prince during the banquet at Ronda was recalled, and he was informed that the reward of his noble championship of the laws of hospitality which had saved the life of his guest was at hand. A splendid mansion was set apart for him in the most aristocratic quarter of the city. As an earnest of his future generosity, Motadhid presented him at once with ten horses and an equal number of eunuchs, thirty beautiful girls, and a purse of a thousand dinars. Scarcely a day passed without revealing some new token of the attachment of his benefactor. His precocious abilities, no less than the favor of the monarch, procured for him the respectful admiration of the court. His opinion was heard with attention in the Divan. He was appointed to a high command in the army. The expenses of his household, which vied in magnificence with those of the most opulent nobles, were defrayed by an annual salary of twelve thousand pieces of gold. The partiality of Motadhid was further evinced by the frequent bestowal of costly presents, whose rarity and workmanship doubly enhanced their value. In the brilliant society of the Sevillian court no one was superior in rank, public estimation, or popular influence to the young and talented Berber chieftain.
The demoralization which followed the death of their leaders, aided by the corruption previously employed by Motadhid, gave him almost immediate possession of the Berber strongholds. Arcos, Xeres, and Moron surrendered without delay. The resistance of Ronda threatened to be serious on account of its natural strength and the predominance of the African population, but as soon as the troops of Motadhid appeared the citizens of the other races—Arab, Jew, and Christian—rose in rebellion; the Berbers were cut to pieces; the gates were thrown open; and the strongest fortress of Andalusia was added to the principality of Seville.
The news of the terrible fate of the Berber princes was heard with undisguised consternation by the King of Granada. His own unpopularity and the disaffection of his subjects were well known to him. The great number of Arabs and infidels in his dominions was an incessant menace to the stability of his throne, now rendered less secure than ever through the example of Ronda; and even the resource of habitual intoxication could not make him forget the catastrophe which, at that very moment, might be impending. Tortured by frightful suspicions, he determined to remove at one blow all the Arabs in the capital. For the accomplishment of this atrocious deed, he selected Friday, when the Moslems would be assembled at service in the mosque, the commission of such a sacrilege being a matter of indifference then compared with the greater crime. In vain the Vizier Samuel, to whom the design had been communicated, attempted to represent its folly. The King was inexorable. Then the Jew took measures to warn the chief personages of the Arab party. In consequence of this, on the appointed day, the great Moslem temple, usually crowded with worshippers, was almost deserted. It was evident that the bloody project had been betrayed, and the King, having become convinced of the dreadful evils it must inevitably produce, was finally prevailed upon to relinquish it.
Not long afterwards the wise counsellor, whose commanding abilities had almost caused the prejudice against his nation to be forgotten, died. His son, Joseph, a man of finished education and more than ordinary talents, inherited the honors but not the influence of his father. His haughty behavior, the magnificence of his dress, the number and pomp of his retinue, which equalled that of Badis himself, provoked the envy of all classes. Moslems and Jews alike were appalled by his blasphemous speeches. He was more than suspected of apostasy from the religion of Moses, and was so imprudent as to publicly hold up to derision the doctrines of the Koran. It was determined by the enemies of the young minister, whose power over the King was unbounded, to make his unpopularity the excuse for the plunder of the members of his sect, whose wealth had long excited the cupidity of the populace of Granada. In furtherance of this plan, the vilest calumnies were invented concerning him. Impossible crimes were attributed to the promptings of his malignity and injustice. He was accused of a secret understanding with the Prince of Almeria, an enemy of Badis; and the public mind having been inflamed by the publication of satirical poems which depicted in exaggerated terms the dishonesty and rapacity of the Jews, the detested vizier was finally seized in the royal palace by an infuriated mob and crucified. Four thousand unhappy Hebrews were involved in the ruin of their countryman, and paid the forfeit attaching to successful thrift and a proscribed nationality. Their palaces were occupied and their property appropriated by the assassins; and Jewish supremacy in a Mohammedan state, a condition heretofore without precedent in the history of Islam, was forever abolished in the Kingdom of Granada.
The designs of Motadhid had been accomplished by the acquisition of the greater part of Andalusia, and, as no further advantage could possibly accrue to his power by longer maintaining a fraud, he publicly announced the death of the pretended Hischem II. Whether this event, which under the circumstances was politically of little importance, was hastened by his own instrumentality is unknown. At all events the obsequies of the impostor were conducted with regal magnificence, and by a will he was alleged to have written was bequeathed to the hajib the once splendid legacy of the Ommeyade empire.
Fortune, which had hitherto so singularly favored the ambition of Motadhid, seemed now to avert her face from him. His eldest son, Ismail, twice rebelled against his authority, and, having attempted to storm the palace, was taken and died by the hand of his enraged and merciless father. Motamid, his second son, lost the city and state of Malaga, which he had captured, through his own negligence and the want of discipline prevailing among his troops, who were surprised and routed by the King of Granada.
The dominion of Abd-al-Aziz, Emir of Valencia, over Almeria was terminated in 1041 by the rebellion of his vassal, Abu-al-Ahwac-Man, of the tribe of Somadih. Under his son Motasim, the latter principality became famous throughout the Moslem world for the literary accomplishments of its sovereign and the intellectual culture and exquisite courtesy of its people. Motasim was an enthusiastic patron of the arts. His court was the resort of the learned of every land. There the science of the khalifate, expelled by barbarians, found a hospitable welcome. There the scholars of Granada, refugees from Berber tyranny, pursued their studies in peace. There the faquis of different sects discussed in amicable rivalry their doctrines in the presence of the throne. The monarch was the model of every princely virtue. He strove to revive the simple, patriarchal customs of the Desert. He dispensed justice with an impartial yet with a merciful hand. Like others of his race, he made poets the especial recipients of his bounty. Many of them obtained more than a provincial celebrity. Scarcely less honored and popular were the professors of science. Physicians, chemists, and natural philosophers occupy a high rank in the annals of his reign. Abu-Obeyd-Bekri, the most distinguished geographer of Moorish Spain, was a resident of Almeria.
The Christian states of the North, for fifty years torn by internal dissensions, were now united under the sceptre of Ferdinand. The kingdoms of Leon and Castile had been consolidated, and, the differences of the more insignificant principalities being adjusted, the attention of the Christians was again directed to the disunited and helpless members of the khalifate. From this time forth the war against the Moslem was destined to assume the character of a crusade, and hostilities to be seldom suspended until the last bulwark of Islam in the West had fallen and the Cross had been raised upon the towers of the Alhambra.
The progress made by Ferdinand soon disclosed the weakness of his adversaries. Badajoz, Lamego, and Visera fell before his arms. The Emir of Saragossa was forced to abandon all the towns beyond the Douro. The banners of the Castilian army were seen from the walls of Alcala de Henares, in the dominions of Mamun, Emir of Toledo. To preserve his cities from destruction, the latter consented to pay an incredible ransom of money and jewels, which impoverished his treasury, and, with the lords of Saragossa and Badajoz, at once acknowledged the suzerainty of the Christian king. The vanguard of the latter soon appeared in the territory of Seville, and the proud Motadhid, aware of the futility of resistance, sued for peace. It was granted in consideration of an enormous tribute and the delivery of the body of St. Justa, a martyr whose sacrifice was alleged to date as far back as the Roman domination. The bishops of Leon and Astorga were sent at the head of an imposing embassy to receive the relics of the saint. Unfortunately, these could not be identified, and the pious brethren, unwilling to return empty handed, by means of a miraculous vision discovered and obtained a far more valuable prize,—the body of St. Isidore, of Seville. Motadhid affected great sorrow at being compelled to part with such a treasure. With a view to future profit in the trade of similar commodities, he reverentially threw over the bier a magnificent robe of embroidered silk, and, much to the delight of the prelates, who saw with undisguised astonishment the salutary effect produced on the mind of an infidel by the mouldering bones of a Father of the Church, parted from the escort at the gate of the city with many simulated expressions of sorrow and a flood of hypocritical tears. Covering his face with his mantle, his voice choked with sobs, this interesting example of royal piety exclaimed, to the profound edification of the weeping bystanders: “Farewell, Isidore! Farewell, most holy man! Thou knowest what a close intimacy had always existed between us!”