By many, however, of those who might be supposed the best informed on state affairs, both of those at Mequiñez and those at Granada, it was whispered that, under the cover of a mere complimentary embassy and friendly visit something of deep policy, and that of the highest import to both sovereigns, was intended. Indeed it was the general opinion that the object of the Sultan of Morocco in thus sending his fair daughter—in whom it was well-known that wise and enlightened prince placed far more confidence than is usually extended to the sex among the Moors—was to bring about, should it be pleasing to the beautiful Ayesha, a union between the two royal houses, in which case he would himself come to the aid of Granada with such a force of Moslem, backed by such hordes of the wild Berbers as Ali Ibn Tarih himself never led to conquest—such, in a word, as should soon compel the proud and encroaching Ferdinand to look to the safety of his own throne and the integrity of his own dominions, rather than to the invading of the dominions of his neighbors.
Be this as it may, it was all a new world to the Leila Ayesha, for the Moors of Spain during their many centuries of occupation, aggrandisement and decline, had adopted many ideas, many customs from their Christian neighbors, at one time their foes, at another in long intervals of truce, their neighbors and almost their friends.
Nor had the Spaniards failed in the same degree to profit by the vicinity of the intellectual, polished and industrious Moors, until the bigotry of these and the fanaticism of those had given way to more rational and intelligent principles, and the two nations met, whether in war or peace, on a common ground of mutual self-respect and decorum.
Thus the Moors had not only laid aside long since their fanatical war-cry of “The Koran or the Sword!” but had adopted many of the usages of chivalry, no longer holding the Christians as dogs, and slaughtering them without quarter given or taken, but setting them at honorable ransom, and even treating them while prisoners on parole as guests on terms of equality, entertaining them at their boards, and holding sacred to them all the rights of hospitality.
In no respect, however, had a wider change occurred in the habits of the nation than in the treatment of their women, who, although not certainly admitted to the full liberty of Christian ladies, were by no means immured, as in their native land, in the precincts of the Harem, “to blush unseen, and waste their sweetness on the desert air,” but were permitted, still under the guardianship of duennas, and with their trains of Indian eunuchs, and further protected by their veils from the contamination of unholy glances, to be present at festivals, at tournaments, nay! even at banquets, when none but the members of the family or guests of high consideration were expected to be present.
It is not, by the way, a little singular that almost in exact proportion as the Moors enlarged the liberty of their women, by the example of the Spaniards, did the Spaniards contract that of their own bright-eyed ladies, by the example of the Moors; and for many years the rigor of the Spanish duenna was scarcely inferior to that of the Raid of a Moorish harem, or the ladies under charge of the one much more obvious to the gaze of the profane, than the beautiful slaves of the latter.
Did not, therefore, the beautiful Leila Ayesha rejoice and exult in the comparative freedom which she enjoyed among the liberal Moors of Spain, which as fitted to enjoy as the favorite child of a wise father, enlightened far beyond the prejudices of his nation or his time? In his own younger days he had been a traveler, had visited Venice and even Madrid, in both of which cities he had been a sojourner in the character of ambassador, and had thus, like the wily Ulysses, “seen the cities of many nations and learned their understandings.” Their languages he spoke fluently: he even read their works, and, although a sincere and faithful Mussulman, he had learned to prize many of the customs, to appreciate the principles, and in some instances to adopt in his heart at least the practices of the Christians.
Too wise openly to offend the prejudices of his people—and nothing would have done so, more decidedly or more dangerously than any infringement of the sanctity of the harem—he had not dared, absolute as he was, to grant to his daughter that full liberty founded upon the fullness of trust which he had learned to admire in Venice. Still he had done all that he could do without offending prejudices or awakening angry opposition. He had made Ayesha, from her earliest years, the companion of his leisure hours; he had educated her in all that he himself knew, he had consulted her as a friend, he had confided in her as a human soul, not treated her as the mere pet and plaything of an hour.
And now as she grew up from an engaging child to a fair marriageable maiden, accomplished, intellectual, thoughtful, not an irresponsible being, but a responsible human creature, with the beauty, the impulsive nature, the passionate heart of the Moorish girl, but with the reason, the intellect, the soul of the Spanish lady—Muley Abderrahman, who was waxing into years, began to doubt whether he had done wisely in training up the child of Mequiñez, the offspring of the desert, to the arts, the accomplishments, the hopes, and the aspirations of the free Venetian dama—began to look around him anxiously to see where he might bestow the hand of her whom he had learned to cherish and esteem even above his people or his power. He saw none, on that side of the Mediterranean, with whom she could be other than a slave—the first and mistress of the slaves, indeed, but still one of them—a beautiful toy to be prized for beauty, while that beauty should yet endure; if faded, to be cast aside into the sad solitude of neglect for a newer plaything, perhaps to be imprisoned—as a discrowned and discontented queen, and therefore dangerous—in some distant and dim seraglio on the verge of the great burning desert.
And was this a fate for the bright, the beloved, the beautiful, the sage Ayesha?