"Know, O lady, that we Spaniards are not like the Moslems of the East; we do not hide our wives and daughters in prison houses. To us marriage is born of true love, and he who would win love must be a poet; therefore all Andalusians are poets. Would you hear of the wooing of my mother? She was the daughter of the emir of Malaga, and on the day my father came to her father's court, he saw her in the gardens, dancing with her women; and his heart was as fire. Sleep left him. Three days he spent in sighs and sorrow, and on the fourth he stole under the garden wall and sang his passion: how she was lovelier than the Ez-Zahra, 'City of the Fairest'; her voice was sweeter than the murmur of the Guadalquiver glancing in the sun; her eyes more beautiful than the stars when they twinkle in the lake, and a smile from her lips surpassed all wine. Then, on the next night as he sang, she answered him in like manner in verse; how her love was strong as the Berber lion; his white teeth more precious than pearls; his head more beautiful than garlands of roses; and his words cut her heart more keenly than cimeters of Murcia. So my father rejoiced, for he knew he had won; and went boldly to the emir and demanded his daughter in marriage."
"And what are the songs which your poets sing by the Guadalquiver and the Darro?" asked the princess.
"Ah, lady," answered Musa, dreamily, "no true poet can sing his love-song twice. See; I will wish myself back at Cordova, in the orange groves I love so well, and will sing as move the genii of song." And the Spaniard ran his hands over the echoing strings, and sang in low, weird melody:—
"Sweet as the wind when it kisses the rose Is thy breath! Blest, if thy lips had but once on me smiled, Would be death! Give me the throat of the bulbul to sing Forth thy praise: Then wouldst thou drink the clear notes as they spring All thy days! Nard of far Oman's too mean for thy sweetness, Eagle wings lag at thy glancing eyes' fleetness; By thy pure beauty, bright gems lack completeness; Lady, ah, fairest!
Were I a genie, with rapture I'd seize thee; I'd haste away To magic-wrought cavern, all jewelled and golden; There I'd stay While the long glad years with printless feet wheeling Leave no trace, Save only new beauty and soft love revealing In thy face. The speeding of ages would breed us no sorrow; I'd shrink from no past, and dread naught of the morrow; The laugh in thine eyes, that alone I would borrow, Lady, ah, rarest!"
"Ai, Sir Musa," cried Mary, when the strings were still, "were you Louis de Valmont or even my Lord Iftikhar, I should say in my heart, 'How much you are my slave!' But to a Spaniard like yourself the making of such a song—it means nothing?"
"Nothing," answered the Andalusian, his dreamy eye wandering over the marble tracery on the wall above.
The emir broke forth hotly:—
"Wallah, you Spaniard, what mean then your pretty songs, your chatter of praise and compliment, if they are words, words, and nothing more? In the East, whence I come, we thrill, we feel, we make no shame to flame with a mighty passion. Aye, and make our deeds match our fine words."
Musa laid down the lute, and stared at the emir unconcernedly.