35. CHAPTER XXXV.
Death of Muley Aben Hassan.
Muley Abdalla El Zagal had been received with
great acclamations at Granada, on his return from
defeating the count de Cabra. He had endeavored
to turn his victory to the greatest advantage, with his
subjects; giving tilts and tournaments, and other public
festivities, in which the Moors delighted. The
loss of the castles of Cambil and Albahar, and of the
fortress of Zalea, however, checked this sudden tide
of popularity; and some of the fickle populace began
to doubt whether they had not been rather precipitate
in deposing his brother, Muley Aben Hassan.
That superannuated monarch remained in his
faithful town of Almunecar, on the border of the
Mediterranean, surrounded by a few adherents, together
with his wife Zorayna and his children; and
he had all his treasures safe in his possession. The
fiery heart of the old king was almost burnt out, and
all his powers of doing either harm or good seemed
at an end.
While in this passive and helpless state, his brother
El Zagal manifested a sudden anxiety for his health.
He had him removed, with all tenderness and care,
to Salobreña, another fortress on the Mediterranean
coast, famous for its pure and salubrious air; and
the alcayde, who was a devoted adherent to El Zagal,
was charged to have especial care that nothing was
wanting to the comfort and solace of his brother.
Salobreña was a small town, situated on a lofty
and rocky hill, in the midst of a beautiful and fertile
vega, shut up on three sides by mountains, and
opening on the fourth to the Mediterranean. It was
protected by strong walls and a powerful castle, and,
being deemed impregnable, was often used by the
Moorish kings as a place of deposit for their treasures.
They were accustomed also to assign it as a
residence for such of their sons and brothers as
might endanger the security of their reign. Here
the princes lived, in luxurious repose: they had delicious
gardens, perfumed baths, a harem of beauties
at their command—nothing was denied them but the
liberty to depart; that alone was wanting to render
this abode an earthly paradise.
Such was the delightful place appointed by El
Zagal for the residence of his brother; but, notwithstanding
its wonderful salubrity, the old monarch had
not been removed thither many days before he expired.
There was nothing extraordinary in his death:
life with him had long been glimmering in the socket,
and for some time past he might rather have been
numbered with the dead than with the living. The
public, however, are fond of seeing things in a sinister
and mysterious point of view, and there were
many dark surmises as to the cause of this event.
El Zagal acted in a manner to heighten these suspicions:
he caused the treasures of his deceased
brother to be packed on mules and brought to Gra
nada, where he took possession of them, to the exclusion
of the children of Aben Hassan. The sultana
Zorayna and her two sons were lodged in the
Alhambra, in the tower of the Cimares. This was a
residence in a palace—but it had proved a royal
prison to the sultana Ayxa la Horra, and her youthful
son Boabdil. There the unhappy Zorayna had time
to meditate upon the disappointment of all those
ambitious schemes for herself and children, for which
she had stained her conscience with so many crimes,
and induced her cruel husband to imbrue his hands
in the blood of his other offspring.
The corpse of old Muley Aben Hassan was also
brought to Granada, not in state becoming the remains
of a once-powerful sovereign, but transported
on a mule, like the corpse of the poorest peasant. It
received no honor or ceremonial from El Zagal, and
appears to have been interred obscurely, to prevent
any popular sensation; and it is recorded by an ancient
and faithful chronicler of the time, that the
body of the old monarch was deposited by two
christian captives in his osario or charnel-house.[1]
Such was the end of the turbulent Muley Aben
Hassan, who, after passing his life in constant contests
for empire, could scarce gain quiet admission
into the corner of a sepulchre.
No sooner were the populace well assured that
old Muley Aben Hassan was dead, and beyond recovery,
than they all began to extol his memory and
deplore his loss. They admitted that he had been
fierce and cruel, but then he had been brave; he
had, to be sure, pulled this war upon their heads,
but he had likewise been crushed by it. In a word,
he was dead; and his death atoned for every fault;
for a king, recently dead, is generally either a hero
or a saint.
In proportion as they ceased to hate old Muley
Aben Hassan, they began to hate his brother El Zagal.
The circumstances of the old king's death, the
eagerness to appropriate his treasures, the scandalous
neglect of his corpse, and the imprisonment of his
sultana and children, all filled the public mind with
gloomy suspicions; and the epithet of Fratracide!
was sometimes substituted for that of El Zagal, in
the low murmurings of the people.
As the public must always have some object to
like as well as to hate, there began once more to be
an inquiry after their fugitive king, Boabdil el Chico.
That unfortunate monarch was still at Cordova, existing
on the cool courtesy and meagre friendship of
Ferdinand; which had waned exceedingly, ever
since Boabdil had ceased to have any influence in
his late dominions. The reviving interest expressed
in his fate by the Moorish public, and certain secret
overtures made to him, once more aroused the sympathy
of Ferdinand: he immediately advised Boabdil
again to set up his standard within the frontiers of
Granada, and furnished him with money and means
for the purpose. Boabdil advanced but a little way
into his late territories; he took up his post at Velez
el Blanco, a strong town on the confines of Murcia;
there he established the shadow of a court, and
stood, as it were, with one foot over the border, and
ready to draw that back upon the least alarm. His
presence in the kingdom, however, and his assumption
of royal state, gave life to his faction in Granada.
The inhabitants of the Albaycin, the poorest but
most warlike part of the populace, were generally
in his favor: the more rich, courtly, and aristocratical
inhabitants of the quarter of the Alhambra, rallied
round what appeared to be the most stable
authority, and supported the throne of El Zagal. So
it is, in the admirable order of sublunary affairs:
every thing seeks its kind; the rich befriend the rich,
the powerful stand by the powerful, the poor enjoy
the patronage of the poor—and thus a universal
harmony prevails.
