It was full of
passion and tenderness. It spoke of the delights of early life; the
hours of love it had enjoyed on the banks of the Darro, and among the
blissful abodes of the Alhambra. It bewailed the fallen honours of the
Abencerrages, and imprecated vengeance on their oppressors. Antonio
was affected by the music. It singularly coincided with the place. It
was like the voice of past times echoed in the present, and breathing
among the monuments of its departed glory.
The voice ceased; after a time the light disappeared, and all was
still. "She sleeps!" said Antonio, fondly. He lingered about the
building, with the devotion with which a lover lingers about the bower
of sleeping beauty. The rising moon threw its silver beams on the gray
walls, and glittered on the casement. The late gloomy landscape
gradually became flooded with its radiance. Finding, therefore, that
he could no longer move about in obscurity, and fearful that his
loiterings might be observed, he reluctantly retired.
The curiosity which had at first drawn the young man to the tower, was
now seconded by feelings of a more romantic kind. His studies were
almost entirely abandoned. He maintained a kind of blockade of the old
mansion; he would take a book with him, and pass a great part of the
day under the trees in its vicinity; keeping a vigilant eye upon it,
and endeavouring to ascertain what were the walks of his mysterious
charmer.
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