Complete Fictional Works of Washington Irving (Illustrated)

by Washington Irving

  While Abderahman was thus indulging in the gentle propensities of his nature, mischief was secretly at work. Muhamad, the youngest son of Yusuf, had been for many years a prisoner in the tower of Cordova. Being passive and resigned, his keepers relaxed their vigilance, and brought him forth from his dungeon. He went groping about, however, in broad daylight, as if still in the darkness of his tower. His guards watched him narrowly, lest this should be a deception, but were at length convinced that the long absence of light had rendered him blind. They now permitted him to descend frequently to the lower chambers of the tower, and to sleep there occasionally, during the heats of summer. They even allowed him to grope his way to the cistern, in quest of water for his ablutions.

  A year passed in this way without anything to excite suspicion. During all this time, however, the blindness of Muhamad was entirely a deception; and he was concerting a plan of escape, through the aid of some friends of his father, who found means to visit him occasionally. One sultry evening in midsummer, the guards had gone to bathe in the Guadalquivir, leaving Muhamad alone, in the lower chambers of the tower. No sooner were they out of sight and hearing than he hastened to a window of the staircase, leading down to the cistern, lowered himself as far as his arms would reach, and dropped without injury to the ground. Plunging into the Guadalquivir, he swam across to a thick grove on the opposite side, where his friends were waiting to receive him. Here, mounting a horse which they had provided for an event of the kind, he fled across the country, by solitary roads, and made good his escape to the mountains of Jaen.

  The guardians of the tower dreaded for some time to make known his flight to Abderahman. When at length it was told to him, he exclaimed: “All is the work of eternal wisdom; it is intended to teach us that we cannot benefit the wicked without injuring the good. The flight of that blind man will cause much trouble and bloodshed.”

  His predictions were verified. Muhamad reared the standard of rebellion on the mountains; the seditious and discontented of all kinds hastened to join it, together with soldiers of fortune, or rather wandering banditti, and he had soon six thousand men, well armed, hardy in habits and desperate in character. His brother Casim also reappeared about the same time in the mountains of Ronda, at the head of a daring band that laid all the neighboring valleys under contribution.

  Abderahman summoned his alcaydes from their various military posts, to assist in driving the rebels from their mountain fastnesses into the plains. It was a dangerous and protracted toil, for the mountains were frightfully wild and rugged. He entered them with a powerful host, driving the rebels from height to height and valley to valley, and harassing them by a galling fire from thousands of crossbows. At length a decisive battle took place near the river Guadalemar. The rebels were signally defeated; four thousand fell in action, many were drowned in the river, and Muhamad, with a few horsemen, escaped to the mountains of the Algarves. Here he was hunted by the alcaydes from one desolate retreat to another; his few followers grew tired of sharing the disastrous fortunes of a fated man; one by one deserted him, and he himself deserted the remainder, fearing they might give him up, to purchase their own pardon.

  Lonely and disguised, he plunged into the depths of the forests, or lurked in dens and caverns, like a famished wolf, often casting back his thoughts with regret to the time of his captivity in the gloomy tower of Cordova. Hunger at length drove him to Alarcon, at the risk of being discovered. Famine and misery, however, had so wasted and changed him that he was not recognized. He remained nearly a year in Alarcon, unnoticed and unknown, yet constantly tormenting himself with the dread of discovery, and with groundless fears of the vengeance of Abderahman. Death at length put an end to his wretchedness.

  A milder fate attended his brother Casim. Being defeated in the mountains of Murcia, he was conducted in chains to Cordova. On coming into the presence of Abderahman, his once fierce and haughty spirit, broken by distress, gave way; he threw himself on the earth, kissed the dust beneath the feet of the king, and implored his clemency. The benignant heart of Abderahman was filled with melancholy, rather than exultation, at beholding this wreck of the once haughty family of Yusuf a suppliant at his feet, and suing for mere existence. He thought upon the mutability of fortune, and felt how insecure are all her favors. He raised the unhappy Casim from the earth, ordered his irons to be taken off, and, not content with mere forgiveness, treated him with honor, and gave him possessions in Seville, where he might live in state conformable to the ancient dignity of his family. Won by this great and persevering magnanimity, Casim ever after remained one of the most devoted of his subjects.

  All the enemies of Abderahman were at length subdued; he reigned undisputed sovereign of the Moslems of Spain; and so benign was his government that every one blessed the revival of the illustrious line of Omeya. He was at all times accessible to the humblest of his subjects: the poor man ever found in him a friend, and the oppressed a protector. He improved the administration of justice; established schools for public instruction; encouraged poets and men of letters, and cultivated the sciences. He built mosques in every city that he visited; inculcated religion by example as well as by precept; and celebrated all the festivals prescribed by the Koran with the utmost magnificence.

  As a monument of gratitude to God for the prosperity with which he had been favored, he undertook to erect a mosque in his favorite city of Cordova that should rival in splendor the great mosque of Damascus, and excel the one recently erected in Bagdad by the Abbassides, the supplanters of his family.

  It is said that he himself furnished the plan for this famous edifice, and even worked on it, with his own hands, one hour in each day, to testify his zeal and humility in the service of God, and to animate his workmen. He did not live to see it completed, but it was finished according to his plans by his son Hixem. When finished, it surpassed the most splendid mosques of the east. It was six hundred feet in length, and two hundred and fifty in breadth. Within were twenty-eight aisles, crossed by nineteen, supported by a thousand and ninety-three columns of marble. There were nineteen portals, covered with plates of bronze of rare workmanship. The principal portal was covered with plates of gold. On the summit of the grand cupola were three gilt balls surmounted by a golden pomegranate. At night, the mosque was illuminated with four thousand seven hundred lamps, and great sums were expended in amber and aloes, which were burned as perfumes. The mosque remains to this day, shorn of its ancient splendor, yet still one of the grandest Moslem monuments in Spain.

  Finding himself advancing in years, Abderahman assembled in his capital of Cordova the principal governors and commanders of his kingdom, and in presence of them all, with great solemnity, nominated his son Hixem as the successor to the throne. All present made an oath of fealty to Abderahman during his life, and to Hixem after his death. The prince was younger than his brothers, Suleiman and Abdallah; but he was the son of Howara, the tenderly beloved sultana of Abderahman, and her influence, it is said, gained him this preference.

  Within a few months afterward, Abderahman fell grievously sick at Merida. Finding his end approaching, he summoned Hixem to his bedside: “My son,” said he, “the angel of death is hovering over me; treasure up, therefore, in thy heart this dying counsel, which I give through the great love I bear thee. Remember that all empire is from God, who gives and takes it away, according to his pleasure. Since God, through his divine goodness, has given us regal power and authority, let us do his holy will, which is nothing else than to do good to all men, and especially to those committed to our protection. Render equal justice, my son, to the rich and the poor, and never suffer injustice to be done within thy dominion, for it is the road to perdition. Be merciful and benignant to those dependent upon thee. Confide the government of thy cities and provinces to men of worth and experience; punish without compassion those ministers who oppress thy people with exorbitant exactions. Pay thy troops punctually; teach them to feel a certainty in thy promises; command them with gentleness but
firmness, and make them in truth the defenders of the state, not its destroyers. Cultivate unceasingly the affections of thy people, for in their goodwill consists the security of the state, in their distrust its peril, in their hatred its certain ruin. Protect the husbandmen who cultivate the earth, and yield us necessary sustenance; never permit their fields, and groves, and gardens to be disturbed. In a word, act in such wise that thy people may bless thee, and may enjoy, under the shadow of thy wing, a secure and tranquil life. In this consists good government; if thou dost practice it, thou wilt be happy among thy people, and renowned throughout the world.”

  Having given this excellent counsel, the good king Abderahman blessed his son Hixem, and shortly after died; being but in the sixtieth year of his age. He was interred with great pomp; but the highest honors that distinguished his funeral were the tears of real sorrow shed upon his grave. He left behind him a name for valor, justice, and magnanimity, and forever famous as being the founder of the glorious line of the Ommiades in Spain.

  THE WIDOW’S ORDEAL

  OR A JUDICIAL TRIAL BY COMBAT

  The world is daily growing older and wiser. Its institutions vary with its years, and mark its growing wisdom; and none more so than its modes of investigating truth, and ascertaining guilt or innocence. In its nonage, when man was yet a fallible being, and doubted the accuracy of his own intellect, appeals were made to heaven in dark and doubtful cases of atrocious accusation.

  The accused was required to plunge his hand in boiling oil, or to walk across red-hot plowshares, or to maintain his innocence in armed fight and listed field, in person or by champion. If he passed these ordeals unscathed, he stood acquitted, and the result was regarded as a verdict from on high.

  It is somewhat remarkable that, in the gallant age of chivalry, the gentler sex should have been most frequently the subjects of these rude trials and perilous ordeals; and that, too, when assailed in their most delicate and vulnerable part — their honor.

  In the present very old and enlightened age of the world, when the human intellect is perfectly competent to the management of its own concerns, and needs no special interposition of heaven in its affairs, the trial by jury has superseded these superhuman ordeals; and the unanimity of twelve discordant minds is necessary to constitute a verdict. Such a unanimity would, at first sight, appear also to require a miracle from heaven; but it is produced by a simple device of human ingenuity. The twelve jurors are locked up in their box, there to fast until abstinence shall have so clarified their intellects that the whole jarring panel can discern the truth, and concur in a unanimous decision. One point is certain, that truth is one and is immutable — until the jurors all agree, they cannot all be right.

  It is not our intention, however, to discuss this great judicial point, or to question the avowed superiority of the mode of investigating truth adopted in this antiquated and very sagacious era. It is our object merely to exhibit to the curious reader one of the most memorable cases of judicial combat we find in the annals of Spain. It occurred at the bright commencement of the reign, and in the youthful, and, as yet, glorious days, of Roderick the Goth; who subsequently tarnished his fame at home by his misdeeds, and, finally, lost his kingdom and his life on the banks of the Guadalete, in that disastrous battle which gave up Spain a conquest to the Moors. The following is the story:

  There was once upon a time a certain duke of Lorraine, who was acknowledged throughout his domains to be one of the wisest princes that ever lived. In fact, there was no one measure adopted by him that did not astonish his privy counselors and gentlemen in attendance; and he said such witty things, and made such sensible speeches, that the jaws of his high chamberlain were wellnigh dislocated from laughing with delight at one, and gaping with wonder at the other.

  This very witty and exceedingly wise potentate lived for half a century in single blessedness; at length his courtiers began to think it a great pity so wise and wealthy a prince should not have a child after his own likeness, to inherit his talents and domains; so they urged him most respectfully to marry, for the good of his estate, and the welfare of his subjects.

  He turned their advice over in his mind some four or five years, and then sent forth emissaries to summon to his court all the beautiful maidens in the land who were ambitious of sharing a ducal crown. The court was soon crowded with beauties of all styles and complexions, from among whom he chose one in the earliest budding of her charms, and acknowledged by all the gentlemen to be unparalleled for grace and loveliness. The courtiers extolled the duke to the skies for making such a choice, and considered it another proof of his great wisdom. “The duke,” said they, “is waxing a little too old, the damsel, on the other hand, is a little too young; if one is lacking in years, the other has a superabundance; thus a want on one side is balanced by the excess on the other, and the result is a well-assorted marriage.”

  The duke, as is often the case with wise men who marry rather late, and take damsels rather youthful to their bosoms, became dotingly fond of his wife, and very properly indulged her in all things. He was, consequently, cried up by his subjects in general, and by the ladies in particular, as a pattern for husbands; and, in the end, from the wonderful docility with which he submitted to be reined and checked, acquired the amiable and enviable appellation of Duke Philibert the wife-ridden.

  There was only one thing that disturbed the conjugal felicity of this paragon of husbands — though a considerable tine elapsed after his marriage, there was still no prospect of an heir. The good duke left no means untried to propitiate heaven. He made vows and pilgrimages, he fasted and he prayed, but all to no purpose. The courtiers were all astonished at the circumstance. They could not account for it. While the meanest peasant in the country had sturdy brats by dozens, without putting up a prayer, the duke wore himself to skin and bone with penances and fastings, yet seemed further off from his object than ever.

  At length, the worthy prince fell dangerously ill, and felt his end approaching. He looked sorrowfully and dubiously upon his young and tender spouse, who hung over him with tears and sobbings. “Alas!” said he, “tears are soon dried from youthful eyes, and sorrow lies lightly on a youthful heart. In a little while thou wilt forget in the arms of another husband him who has loved thee so tenderly.”

  “Never! never!” cried the duchess. “Never will I cleave to another! Alas, that my lord should think me capable of such inconstancy!”

  The worthy and wife-ridden duke was soothed by her assurances; for he could not brook the thought of giving her up even after he should be dead. Still he wished to have some pledge of her enduring constancy:

  “Far be it from me, my dearest wife,” said he, “to control thee through a long life. A year and a day of strict fidelity will appease my troubled spirit. Promise to remain faithful to my memory for a year and a day, and I will die in peace.”

  The duchess made a solemn vow to that effect, but the uxorious feelings of the duke were not yet satisfied. “Safe bind, safe find,” thought he; so he made a will, bequeathing to her all his domains, on condition of her remaining true to him for a year and a day after his decease; but, should it appear that, within that time, she had in anywise lapsed from her fidelity, the inheritance should go to his nephew, the lord of a neighboring territory.

  Having made his will, the good duke died and was buried. Scarcely was he in his tomb, when his nephew came to take possession, thinking, as his uncle had died without issue, the domains would be devised to him of course. He was in a furious passion, when the will was produced, and the young widow declared inheritor of the dukedom. As he was a violent, high-handed man, and one of the sturdiest knights in the land, fears were entertained that he might attempt to seize on the territories by force. He had, however, two bachelor uncles for bosom counselors, swaggering, rakehelly old cavaliers, who, having led loose and riotous lives, prided themselves upon knowing the world, and being deeply experienced in human nature. “Prithee, man, be of good cheer,” said they, “t
he duchess is a young and buxom widow. She has just buried our brother, who, God rest his soul! was somewhat too much given to praying and fasting, and kept his pretty wife always tied to his girdle. She is now like a bird from a cage. Think you she will keep her vow? Pooh, pooh — impossible! Take our words for it — we know mankind, and, above all, womankind. She cannot hold out for such a length of time; it is not in womanhood — it is not in widowhood — we know it, and that’s enough. Keep a sharp lookout upon the widow, therefore, and within the twelvemonth you will catch her tripping — and then the dukedom is your own.”

  The nephew was pleased with this counsel, and immediately placed spies round the duchess, and bribed several of her servants to keep watch upon her, so that she could not take a single step, even from one apartment of her palace to another, without being observed. Never was young and beautiful widow exposed to so terrible an ordeal.

  The duchess was aware of the watch thus kept upon her. Though confident of her own rectitude, she knew that it is not enough for a woman to be virtuous — she must be above the reach of slander. For the whole term of her probation, therefore, she proclaimed a strict non-intercourse with the other sex. She had females for cabinet ministers and chamberlains, through whom she transacted all her public and private concerns; and it is said that never were the affairs of the dukedom so adroitly administered.