Dejected, and sad of heart, he retired from the spot; and, returning
home, sought a couch, to which even all the fatigue and excitement he had
undergone, could not win the forgetfulness of slumber. The mystery that
wrapt the maiden of his homage, the rareness of their interviews, and the
wild and poetical romance that made a very principle of the chivalry of
the Spanish Moors, had imparted to Muza's love for Leila a passionate
depth, which, at this day, and in more enervated climes, is unknown to
the Mohammedan lover. His keenest inquiries had been unable to pierce
the secret of her birth and station. Little of the inmates of that
guarded and lonely house was known in the neighbourhood; the only one
ever seen without its walls was an old man of the Jewish faith, supposed
to be a superintendent of the foreign slaves (for no Mohammedan slave
would have been subjected to the insult of submission to a Jew); and
though there were rumours of the vast wealth and gorgeous luxury within
the mansion, it was supposed the abode of some Moorish emir absent from
the city--and the interest of the gossips was at this time absorbed in
more weighty matters than the affairs of a neighbour. But when, the next
eve, and the next, Muza returned to the spot equally in vain, his
impatience and alarm could no longer be restrained; he resolved to lie in
watch by the portals of the house night and day, until, at least, he
could discover some one of the inmates, whom he could question of his
love, and perhaps bribe to his service. As with this resolution he was
hovering round the mansion, he beheld, stealing from a small door in one
of the low wings of the house, a bended and decrepit form: it supported
its steps upon a staff; and, as now entering the garden, it stooped by
the side of a fountain to cull flowers and herbs by the light of the
moon, the Moor almost started to behold a countenance which resembled
that of some ghoul or vampire haunting the places of the dead. He smiled
at his own fear; and, with a quick and stealthy pace, hastened through
the trees, and, gaining the spot where the old man bent, placed his hand