Here found themselves one morning, Mr. Horner and Miss Lejeune, Bessie and Tommy; Bessie grumbling, as usual, at Charles the Fifth, and Ferdinand and Isabella, who have left their traces so often in the destruction of Moorish ornament.
“I do believe,” said Bessie, “that Isabella herself rode on a whitewash brush!”
“Perhaps she was the—
Old woman, old woman, said I,
To sweep the cobwebs from the sky!“
said Tommy.
They passed on through the gate. Charles the Fifth and Isabella were forgotten. The transition was magical; they felt at once transported into other times, and were treading the scenes of the Arabian Nights. They were in the Court of Myrtles, a long, open patio, of which the floor is taken up by an immense basin, more than a hundred feet long, bordered by myrtle-trees and roses. It is surrounded by a light arcade of Moorish columns, and at the upper end rises the great Tower of Comares. The pillars here and elsewhere are of extreme lightness, and the ornamentation of the capital varies in each; slender arches spring from the capitals, and bend gracefully till they meet. A dado of azulejos, or colored tiles, runs along the wall, from the floor of brightest colors, with great variety of patterns. The eye is never tired of following these designs, nor those of the arabesque work above, into which are woven Arabic sentences, in the graceful lettering of that language. Across the water is seen the vista made by the entrance to the Hall of Ambassadors, the chief room of the Tower of Comares. The tower and its colonnades are reflected in the clear still water of the pool.
“Oh, how lovely!” exclaimed Miss Lejeune. “This surpasses all my dreams of it.”
“Let us stay here, and not go any further to-day!” said Bessie.
Tommy was well content to study the goldfish in the clear water, rather startled, as he leaned over, to catch the perfect reflection of his own face on the surface of the pool, with behind it an intensely blue sky studded with woolly white clouds. He looked up instinctively, and saw above the graceful fretwork of the court, the real bright sky and clouds, just like the mirrored ones.
“Our guide apparently expects us to move on,” remarked Mr. Horner. “We can let him gallop us through once, and then come at our leisure as often as we like.”