37. CHAPTER XXXVII.
How fresh commotions broke out in Granada, and how
the people undertook to allay them.
While perfect unity of object and harmony of
operation gave power to the christian arms, the devoted
kingdom of Granada continued a prey to internal
feuds. The transient popularity of El Zagal
had declined ever since the death of his brother,
and the party of Boabdil el Chico was daily gaining
strength: the Albaycin and the Alhambra were again
arrayed against each other in deadly strife, and the
streets of unhappy Granada were daily dyed in the
blood of her children. In the midst of these dissensions,
tidings arrived of the formidable army assembling
at Cordova. The rival factions paused in their
infatuated brawls, and were roused to a temporary
sense of the common danger. They forthwith resorted
to their old expedient of new-modelling their
government, or rather of making and unmaking kings.
The elevation of El Zagal to the throne had not produced
the desired effect—what then was to be done?
Recall Boabdil el Chico, and acknowledge him again
as sovereign? While they were in a popular tumult
of deliberation, Hamet Aben Zarrax, surnamed El
Santo, arose among them. This was the same wild,
melancholy man, who had predicted the woes of
Granada. He issued from one of the caverns of the
adjacent height which overhangs the Darro, and has
since been called the Holy Mountain. His appearance
was more haggard than ever; for the unheeded
spirit of prophecy seemed to have turned inwardly,
and preyed upon his vitals. “Beware, oh Moslems,”
exclaimed he, “of men who are eager to govern, yet
are unable to protect. Why slaughter each other for
El Chico or El Zagal? Let your kings renounce their
contests, unite for the salvation of Granada, or let
them be deposed.”
Hamet Aben Zarrax had long been revered as a
saint—he was now considered an oracle. The old
men and the nobles immeidately consulted together,
how the two rival kings might be brought to accord.
They had tried most expedients: it was now determined
to divide the kingdom between them; giving
Granada, Malaga, Velez Malaga, Almeria, Almunecar,
and their dependencies, to El Zagal—and the
residue to Boabdil el Chico. Among the cities
granted to the latter, Loxa was particularly specified,
with a condition that he should immediately take
command of it in person; for the council thought the
favor he enjoyed with the Castilian monarchs, might
avert the threatened attack.
El Zagal readily accorded to this arrangement; he
had been hastily elevated to the throne by an ebullition
of the people, and might be as hastily cast
down again. It secured him one-half of a kingdom
to which he had no hereditary right, and he trusted
to force or fraud to gain the other half hereafter.
The wily old monarch even sent a deputation to his
nephew, making a merit of offering him cheerfully
the half which he had thus been compelled to relinquish,
and inviting him to enter into an amicable
coalition for the good of the country.
The heart of Boabdil shrunk from all connexion
with a man who had sought his life, and whom he
regarded as the murderer of his kindred. He accepted
one-half of the kingdom as an offer from the
nation, not to be rejected by a prince who scarcely
held possession of the ground he stood on. He asserted,
nevertheless, his absolute right to the whole,
and only submitted to the partition out of anxiety for
the present good of his people. He assembled his
handful of adherents, and prepared to hasten to Loxa.
As he mounted his horse to depart, Hamet Aben
Zarrax stood suddenly before him. “Be true to thy
country and thy faith,” cried he: “hold no further
communication with these christian dogs. Trust not
the hollow-hearted friendship of the Castilian king;
he is mining the earth beneath thy feet. Choose
one of two things; be a sovereign or a slave—thou
canst not be both.”
Boabdil ruminated on these words; he made many
wise resolutions, but he was prone always to act
from the impulse of the moment, and was unfortunately
given to temporize in his policy. He wrote
to Ferdinand, informing him that Loxa and certain
other cities had returned to their allegiance, and that
he held them as vassal to the Castilian crown, according
to their convention. He conjured him,
therefore, to refrain from any meditated attack, of
fering free passage to the Spanish army to Malaga,
or any other place under the dominion of his uncle.
[1]
Ferdinand turned a deaf ear to the entreaty, and
to all professions of friendship and vassalage. Boabdil
was nothing to him, but as an instrument for
stirring up the flames of civil war. He now insisted
that he had entered into a hostile league with his
uncle, and had consequently forfeited all claims to
his indulgence; and he prosecuted, with the greater
earnestness, his campaign against the city of Loxa.
“Thus,” observes the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida,
“thus did this most sagacious sovereign act upon
the text in the eleventh chapter of the Evangelist St.
Luke, that `a kingdom divided against itself cannot
stand.' He had induced these infidels to waste and
destroy themselves by internal dissensions, and finally
cast forth the survivor; while the Moorish monarchs,
by their ruinous contests, made good the old Castilian
proverb in cases of civil war, `El vencido vencido, y
el vencidor perdido,' (the conquered conquered, and
the conqueror undone.)”[2]
