Leila or, the Siege of Granada, Complete

  CHAPTER IV. THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

  The chamber into which Leila retreated bore out the character she hadgiven of the interior of her home. The fashion of its ornament anddecoration was foreign to that adopted by the Moors of Granada. It hada more massive and, if we may use the term, Egyptian gorgeousness.The walls were covered with the stuffs of the East, stiff with gold,embroidered upon ground of the deepest purple; strange characters,apparently in some foreign tongue, were wrought in the tesselatedcornices and on the heavy ceiling, which was supported by squarepillars, round which were twisted serpents of gold and enamel, witheyes to which enormous emeralds gave a green and lifelike glare: variousscrolls and musical instruments lay scattered upon marble tables: anda solitary lamp of burnished silver cast a dim and subdued light aroundthe chamber. The effect of the whole, though splendid, was gloomy,strange, and oppressive, and rather suited to the thick and cave-likearchitecture which of old protected the inhabitants of Thebes andMemphis from the rays of the African sun, than to the transparent heavenand light pavilions of the graceful orientals of Granada.

  Leila stood within this chamber, pale and breathless, with her lipsapart, her hands clasped, her very soul in her ears; nor was it possibleto conceive a more perfect ideal of some delicate and brilliant Peri,captured in the palace of a hostile and gloomy Genius. Her form was ofthe lightest shape consistent with the roundness of womanly beauty; andthere was something in it of that elastic and fawnlike grace which asculptor seeks to embody in his dreams of a being more aerial than thoseof earth. Her luxuriant hair was dark indeed, but a purple and glossyhue redeemed it from that heaviness of shade too common in the tressesof the Asiatics; and her complexion, naturally pale but clear andlustrous, would have been deemed fair even in the north. Her features,slightly aquiline, were formed in the rarest mould of symmetry, and herfull rich lips disclosed teeth that might have shamed the pearl. Butthe chief charm of that exquisite countenance was in an expression ofsoftness and purity, and intellectual sentiment, that seldom accompaniesthat cast of loveliness, and was wholly foreign to the voluptuous anddreamy languor of Moorish maidens; Leila had been educated, and thestatue had received a soul.

  After a few minutes of intense suspense, she again stole to the lattice,gently unclosed it, and looked forth. Far, through an opening amidst thetrees, she descried for a single moment the erect and stately figure ofher lover, darkening the moonshine on the sward, as now, quitting hisfruitless search, he turned his lingering gaze towards the lattice ofhis beloved: the thick and interlacing foliage quickly hid him fromher eyes; but Leila had seen enough--she turned within, and said, asgrateful tears trickled clown her cheeks, and she sank on her knees uponthe piled cushions of the chamber: "God of my fathers! I bless Thee--heis safe!"

  "And yet (she added, as a painful thought crossed her), how may I prayfor him? we kneel not to the same Divinity; and I have been taught toloathe and shudder at his creed! Alas! how will this end? Fatal was thehour when he first beheld me in yonder gardens; more fatal still thehour in which he crossed the barrier, and told Leila that she wasbeloved by the hero whose arm was the shelter, whose name is theblessing, of Granada. Ah, me! Ah, me!"

  The young maiden covered her face with her hands, and sank into apassionate reverie, broken only by her sobs. Some time had passed inthis undisturbed indulgence of her grief, when the arras was gentlyput aside, and a man, of remarkable garb and mien, advanced into thechamber, pausing as he beheld her dejected attitude, and gazing on herwith a look on which pity and tenderness seemed to struggle againsthabitual severity and sternness.

  "Leila!" said the intruder.

  Leila started, and and a deep blush suffused her countenance; she dashedthe tears from her eyes, and came forward with a vain attempt to smile.

  "My father, welcome!"

  The stranger seated himself on the cushions, and motioned Leila to hisside.

  "These tears are fresh upon thy cheek," said he, gravely; "they are thewitness of thy race! our daughters are born to weep, and our sons togroan! ashes are on the head of the mighty, and the Fountains of theBeautiful run with gall! Oh that we could but struggle--that we couldbut dare--that we could raise up, our heads, and unite against thebondage of the evil doer! It may not be--but one man shall avenge anation!"

  The dark face of Leila's father, well fitted to express powerfulemotion, became terrible in its wrath and passion; his brow and lipworked convulsively; but the paroxysm was brief; and scarce could sheshudder at its intensity ere it had subsided into calm.

  "Enough of these thoughts, which thou, a woman and a child, art notformed to witness. Leila, thou hast been nurtured with tenderness, andschooled with care. Harsh and unloving may I have seemed to thee, but Iwould have shed the best drops of my heart to have saved thy young yearsfrom a single pang. Nay, listen to me silently. That thou mightestone day be worthy of thy race, and that thine hours might not passin indolent and weary lassitude, thou hast been taught lessons ofa knowledge rarely to thy sex. Not thine the lascivious arts of theMoorish maidens; not thine their harlot songs, and their dances of lewddelight; thy delicate limbs were but taught the attitude that Naturededicates to the worship of a God, and the music of thy voice was tunedto the songs of thy fallen country, sad with the memory of her wrongs,animated with the names of her heroes, with the solemnity of herprayers. These scrolls, and the lessons of our seers, have imparted tothee such of our science and our history as may fit thy mind to aspire,and thy heart to feel for a sacred cause. Thou listenest to me, Leila?"

  Perplexed and wondering, for never before had her father addressed herin such a strain, the maiden answered with an earnestness of mannerthat seemed to content the questioner; and he resumed, with an altered,hollow, solemn voice:

  "Then curse the persecutors. Daughter of the great Hebrew race, ariseand curse the Moorish taskmaster and spoiler!"

  As he spoke, the adjuror himself rose, lifting his right hand on high;while his left touched the shoulder of the maiden. But she, after gazinga moment in wild and terrified amazement upon his face, fell coweringat his knees; and, clasping them imploringly, exclaimed in scarcearticulate murmurs:

  "Oh, spare me! spare me!"

  The Hebrew, for such he was, surveyed her, as she thus quailed at hisfeet, with a look of rage and scorn: his hand wandered to his poniard,he half unsheathed it, thrust it back with a muttered curse, and then,deliberately drawing it forth, cast it on the ground beside her.

  "Degenerate girl!" he said, in accents that vainly struggled for calm,"if thou hast admitted to thy heart one unworthy thought towards aMoorish infidel, dig deep and root it out, even with the knife, and tothe death--so wilt thou save this hand from that degrading task."

  He drew himself hastily from her grasp, and left the unfortunate girlalone and senseless.