LEILA

OR,

THE SIEGE OF GRANADA

BY

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON


Book II.



CHAPTER I.

THE ROYAL TENT OF SPAIN.--THE KING AND THE DOMINICAN--THE VISITOR
AND THE HOSTAGE.

Our narrative now summons us to the Christian army, and to the tent in
which the Spanish king held nocturnal counsel with some of his more
confidential warriors and advisers. Ferdinand had taken the field with
all the pomp and circumstance of a tournament rather than of a campaign;
and his pavilion literally blazed with purple and cloth of gold.

The king sat at the head of a table on which were scattered maps and
papers; nor in countenance and mien did that great and politic monarch
seem unworthy of the brilliant chivalry by which he was surrounded. His
black hair, richly perfumed and anointed, fell in long locks on either