Complete Fictional Works of Washington Irving (Illustrated) (176 page)

Abderahman reached Spain in safely, and landed at Almanecar, with his little band of warlike Zenetes. Spain was at that time in a state of great confusion. Upward of forty years had elapsed since the conquest. The civil wars in Syria and Egypt had prevented the main government at Damascus from exercising control over this distant and recently acquired territory. Every Moslem commander considered the town or province committed to his charge an absolute property; and accordingly exercised the most arbitrary extortions. These excesses at length became insupportable, and, at a convocation of many of the principal leaders, it was determined, as a means to end these dissensions, to unite all the Moslem provinces of Spain under one emir, or general governor. Yusuf el Fehri, an ancient man, of honorable lineage, was chosen for this station. He began his reign with policy, and endeavored to conciliate all parties; but the distribution of offices soon created powerful enemies among the disappointed leaders. A civil war was the consequence, and Spain was deluged with blood. The troops of both parties burned and ravaged and laid every thing waste, to distress their antagonists; the villages were abandoned by their inhabitants, who fled to the cities for refuge; and flourishing towns disappeared from the face of the earth, or remained mere heaps of rubbish and ashes. At the time of the landing of Abderahman in Spain, the old Emir Yusuf had obtained a signal victory. He had captured Saragossa, in which was Ameer ben Amru, his principal enemy, together with his son and secretary. Loading his prisoners with chains, and putting them on camels, he set out in triumph for Cordova, considering himself secure in the absolute domination of Spain.

He had halted one day in a valley called Wadarambla, and was reposing with his family in his pavilion, while his people and the prisoners made a repast in the open air. In the midst of his repose, his confidential adherent and general, the Wali Samael, galloped into the camp covered with dust and exhausted with fatigue. He brought tidings of the arrival of Abderahman and that the whole seaboard was flocking to his standard. Messenger after messenger came hurrying into the camp, confirming the fearful tidings, and adding that this descendant of the Omeyas had secretly been invited to Spain by Amru and his followers. Yusuf waited not to ascertain the truth of this accusation. Giving way to a transport of fury, he ordered that Amru, his son and secretary, should be cut to pieces. His commands were instantly executed. “And this cruelty,” says the Arabian chronicler, “lost him the favor of Allah; for from that time success deserted his standard.”

Abderahman had indeed been hailed with joy on his landing in Spain. The old people hoped to find tranquillity under the sway of one supreme chieftain, descended from their ancient caliphs; the young men were rejoiced to have a youthful warrior to lead them on to victories; and the populace, charmed with his freshness and manly beauty, his majestic yet gracious and affable demeanor, shouted: “Long live Abderahman ben Moavia Meramamolin of Spain!”

In a few days the youthful sovereign saw himself at the head of more than twenty thousand men, from the neighborhood of Elvira, Almeria, Malaga, Xeres, and Sidonia. Fair Seville threw open its gates at his approach, and celebrated his arrival with public rejoicings. He continued his march into the country, vanquished one of the eons of Yusuf before the gates of Cordova, and obliged him to take refuge within its walls, where he held him in close siege. Hearing, however, of the approach of Yusuf, the father, with a powerful army, he divided his forces, and leaving ten thousand men to press the siege, he hastened with the other ten to meet the coming foe.

Yusuf had indeed mustered a formidable force, from the east and south of Spain, and accompanied by his veteran general, Samael, came with confident boasting to drive this intruder from the land. His confidence increased on beholding the small army of Abderahman. Turning to Samael, he repeated, with a scornful sneer, a verse from an Arabian poetess, which says:

“How hard is our lot! We come, a thirsty multitude, and lo! but this cup of water to share among us!”

There was indeed a fearful odds. On the one side were two veteran generals, grown gray in victory, with a mighty host of warriors, seasoned in the wars of Spain. On the other side was a mere youth, scarce attained to manhood, with a hasty levy of half-disciplined troops; but the youth was a prince, flushed with hope, and aspiring after fame and empire; and surrounded by a devoted band of warriors from Africa, whose example infused desperate zeal into the little army.

The encounter took place at daybreak. The impetuous valor of the Zenetes carried everything before it. The cavalry of Yusuf was broken, and driven back upon the infantry, and before noon the whole host was put to headlong flight. Yusuf and Samael were borne along in the torrent of the fugitives, raging and storming, and making ineffectual efforts to rally them. They were separated widely in the confusion of the flight, one taking refuge in the Algarves, the other in the kingdom of Murcia. They afterward rallied, reunited their forces, and made another desperate stand near Almunecar. The battle was obstinate and bloody, but they were again defeated, and driven, with a handful of followers, to take refuge in the rugged mountains adjacent to Elvira.

The spirit of the veteran Samael gave way before these fearful reverses. “In vain, oh Yusuf!” said he, “do we contend with the prosperous star of this youthful conqueror: the will of Allah be done! Let us submit to our fate, and sue for favorable terms, while we have yet the means of capitulation.”

It was a hard trial for the proud spirit of Yusuf, that had once aspired to uncontrolled sway; but he was compelled to capitulate. Abderahman was as generous as brave. He granted the two grayheaded generals the most honorable conditions, and even took the veteran Samael into favor, employing him, as a mark of confidence, to visit the eastern provinces of Spain, and restore them to tranquillity. Yusuf, having delivered up Elvira and Granada, and complied with other articles of his capitulation, was permitted to retire to Murcia, and rejoin his son Muhamad. A general amnesty to all chiefs and soldiers who should yield up their strongholds, and lay down their arms, completed the triumph of Abderahman, and brought all hearts into obedience.

Thus terminated this severe struggle for the domination of Spain; and thus the illustrious family of Omeya, after having been cast down and almost exterminated in the East, took new root, and sprang forth prosperously in the West.

Wherever Abderahman appeared, he was received with rapturous acclamations. As he rode through the cities, the populace rent the air with shouts of joy; the stately palaces were crowded with spectators, eager to gain a sight of his graceful form and beaming countenance; and when they beheld the mingled majesty and benignity of their new monarch, and the sweetness and gentleness of his whole conduct, they extolled him as something more than mortal; as a beneficent genius, sent for the happiness of Spain.

In the interval of peace which now succeeded, Abderahman occupied himself in promoting the useful and elegant arts, and in introducing into Spain the refinements of the East. Considering the building and ornamenting of cities as among the noblest employments of the tranquil hours of princes, he bestowed great pains upon beautifying the city of Cordova and its environs. He reconstructed banks and dikes, to keep the Guadalquivir from overflowing its borders, and on the vast terraces thus formed he planted delightful gardens. In the midst of these, he erected a lofty tower, commanding a view of the vast and fruitful valley, enlivened by the windings of the river. In this tower he would pass hours of meditation, gazing on the soft and varied landscape, and inhaling the bland and balmy airs of that delightful region. At such times, his thoughts would recur to the past, and the misfortunes of his youth; the massacre of his family would rise to view, mingled with tender recollections of his native country, from which he was exiled. In these melancholy musings he would sit with his eyes fixed upon a palm-tree which he had planted in the midst of his garden. It is said to have been the first ever planted in Spain, and to have been the parent stock of all the palm-trees which grace the southern provinces of the peninsula. The heart of Abderahman yearned toward this tree; it was the offspring of his native country, and, like him, an exile. In one of his moods of tenderness, he composed verses upon it, which have since become famous throughout the world. The following is a rude but literal translation:

“Beauteous Palm! thou also wert hither brought a stranger; but thy roots have found a kindly soil, thy head is lifted to the skies, and the sweet airs of Algarve fondle and kiss thy branches.

“Thou hast known, like me, the storms of adverse fortune. Bitter tears wouldst thou shed, couldst thou feel my woes. Repeated griefs have overwhelmed me. With early tears I bedewed the palms on the banks of the Euphrates; but neither tree nor river heeded my sorrows, when driven by cruel fate, and the ferocious Aboul Abbas, from the scenes of my childhood and the sweet objects of my affection.

“To thee no remembrance remains of my beloved country; I, unhappy! can never recall it without tears.”

The generosity of Abderahman to his vanquished foes was destined to be abused. The veteran Yusuf, in visiting certain of the cities which he had surrendered, found himself surrounded by zealous partisans, ready to peril life in his service. The love of command revived in his bosom, and he repented the facility with which he had suffered himself to be persuaded to submission. Flushed with new hopes of success, he caused arms to be secretly collected, and deposited in various villages, most zealous in their professions of devotion, and raising a considerable body of troops, seized upon the castle of Almodovar. The rash rebellion was short-lived. At the first appearance of an army sent by Abderahman, and commanded by Abdelmelee, governor of Seville, the villages which had so recently professed loyalty to Yusuf hastened to declare their attachment to the monarch, and to give up the concealed arms. Almodovar was soon retaken, and Yusuf, driven to the environs of Lorea, was surrounded by the cavalry of Abdelmelee. The veteran endeavored to cut a passage through the enemy, but after fighting with desperate fury, and with a force of arm incredible in one of his age, he fell beneath blows from weapons of all kinds, so that after the battle his body could scarcely be recognized, so numerous were the wounds. His head was cut off and sent to Cordova, where it was placed in an iron cage, over the gate of the city.

The old lion was dead, but his whelps survived. Yusuf had left three sons, who inherited his warlike spirit, and were eager to revenge his death. Collecting a number of the scattered adherents of their house, they surprised and seized upon Toledo, during the absence of Temam, its Wali or commander. In this old warrior city, built upon a rock, and almost surrounded by the Tagus, they set up a kind of robber hold, scouring the surrounding country, levying tribute, seizing upon horses, and compelling the peasantry to join their standard. Every day cavalcades of horses and mules, laden with spoil, with flocks of sheep and droves of cattle, came pouring over the bridges on either side of the city, and thronging in at the gates, the plunder of the surrounding country. Those of the inhabitants who were still loyal to Abderahman dared not lift up their voices, for men of the sword bore sway. At length one day, when the sons of Yusuf, with their choicest troops, were out on a maraud, the watchmen on the towers gave the alarm. A troop of scattered horsemen were spurring wildly toward the gates. The banners of the sons of Yusuf were descried. Two of them spurred into the city, followed by a handful of warriors, covered with confusion, and dismay. They had been encountered and defeated by the Wali Temam, and one of the brothers had been slain.

The gates were secured in all haste, and the walls were scarcely manned, when Temam appeared before them with his troops, and summoned the city to surrender. A great internal commotion ensued between the loyalists and the insurgents; the latter, however, had weapons in their hands, and prevailed; and for several days, trusting to the strength of their rock-built fortress, they set the Wali at defiance. At length some of the loyal inhabitants of Toledo, who knew all its secret and subterraneous passages, some of which, if chroniclers may be believed, have existed since the days of Hercules, if not of Tubal Cain, introduced Temam and a chosen band of his warriors into the very center of the city, where they suddenly appeared as if by magic. A panic seized upon the insurgents. Some sought safety in submission, some in concealment, some in flight. Casim, one of the sons of Yusuf, escaped in disguise; the youngest, unarmed, was taken, and was sent captive to the king, accompanied by the head of his brother, who had been slain in battle.

When Abderahman beheld the youth laden with chains, he remembered his own sufferings in his early days, and had compassion on him; but, to prevent him from doing further mischief, he imprisoned him in a tower of the wall of Cordova.

In the meantime Casim, who had escaped, managed to raise another band of warriors. Spain, in all ages a guerrilla country, prone to partisan warfare and petty maraud, was at that time infested by bands of licentious troops, who had sprung up in the civil contests; their only object pillage, their only dependence the sword, and ready to flock to any new and desperate standard, that promised the greatest license. With a ruffian force thus levied, Casim scoured the country, took Sidonia by storm, and surprised Seville while in a state of unsuspecting security.

Abderahman put himself at the head of his faithful Zenetes, and took the field in person. By the rapidity of his movements, the rebels were defeated, Sidonia and Seville speedily retaken, and Casim was made prisoner. The generosity of Abderahman was again exhibited toward this unfortunate son of Yusuf. He spared his life, and sent him to be confined in a tower at Toledo.