Granada, beautiful Granada, with its stately Alhambra, its delicious
gardens, its gushing and limpid fountains sparkling among groves
of orange, citron, and myrtle, rose before him. "What have I done,"
exclaimed he, "that I should be an exile from this paradise of my
forefathers--a wanderer and fugitive in my own kingdom, while a
murderous usurper sits proudly upon my throne? Surely Allah will
befriend the righteous cause; one blow, and all may be my own."

He summoned his scanty band of cavaliers. "Who is ready to follow
his monarch unto the death?" said he; and every one laid his hand
upon his scimetar. "Enough!" said he; "let each man arm himself
and prepare his steed in secret for an enterprise of toil and peril;
if we succeed, our reward is empire."



CHAPTER XLVI.

HOW BOABDIL RETURNED SECRETLY TO GRANADA, AND HOW HE
WAS RECEIVED.--SECOND EMBASSY OF DON JUAN DE VERA,
AND HIS PERILS IN THE ALHAMBRA.


"In the hand of God," exclaimed an old Arabian chronicler, "is the
destiny of princes; he alone giveth empire. A Moorish horseman,
mounted on a fleet Arabian steed, was one day traversing the
mountains which extended between Granada and the frontier of Murcia.
He galloped swiftly through the valleys, but paused and looked out
cautiously from the summit of every height. A squadron of cavaliers
followed warily at a distance. There were fifty lances. The richness