“Return to the desert!” was the exclamation of Blanca, who immediately sunk to the earth in a swoon.
Aben-Hamet prostrated himself, adored Blanca even more than Heaven, and departed without uttering a word. The same night he set out for Malaga, and took his passage on board a vessel which was to touch at Oran. Near that city he found the caravan encamped which leaves Morocco every three years, crosses Africa, repairs to Egypt, and rejoins the caravan of Mecca in Yemen. Aben-Hamet joined it as one of the pilgrims.
Blanca’s life was at first considered to be in danger, but she recovered. Faithful to the promise which he had given to the Abencerrage, Lautrec departed, and never did a word of his love or his sorrow trouble the melancholy of the daughter of the Duke of Santa Fé. Every year Blanca made a journey to Malaga, to wander on the mountains, at the period when her lover was accustomed to return from Africa; she seated herself upon the rocks, contemplated the sea, and the vessels in the distance, and afterwards returned to Granada: she passed the rest of her life amid the ruins of the Alhambra. She complained not; she wept not; she never spoke of Aben-Hamet; a stranger to her would have thought her happy. She was the only survivor of her family. Her father died of grief, and Don Carlos was killed in a duel, in which Lautrec acted as his second. What was the fate of Aben-Hamet no one ever knew.
In leaving Tunis, by the gate which leads to the ruins of Carthage, the traveller finds a cemetery; under a palm-tree, in a corner of this cemetery, a tomb was pointed out to me, which was called the tomb of the last of the Abencerrages. There is nothing remarkable about it; the sepulchral stone is perfectly smooth; only, after a Moorish fashion, a slight hole has been excavated in the middle of it by the chisel. The rain-water which collects in the bottom of this funeral cup, serves, in a burning climate, to quench the thirst of the birds of the air.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Published posthumously. “Stendhal” died in 1842.
[2] The towers of a palace at Granada.
[3] An expression which the Mussulmans have constantly in their mouths, and apply to almost every event in their lives.
[4] This inscription, as well as several others, is still existing. It is needless to say that I wrote this description of the Alhambra on the spot.
[5] The public is already acquainted with this romance. I composed the words for an air of the mountains of Auvergne, remarkable for its sweetness and simplicity.