The discovery of this document filled the Moors of the city to which the
spy had been sent with a fury that no words can describe. Always
distrusting their allies, they now imagined they perceived the sole
reason of their sudden enthusiasm, of their demand for arms. The mob
rose: the principal Jews were seized and massacred without trial; some by
the wrath of the multitude, some by the slower tortures of the
magistrate. Messengers were sent to the different revolted towns, and,
above all, to Granada itself, to put the Moslems on their guard against
these unhappy enemies of either party. At once covetous and ferocious,
the Moors rivalled the Inquisition in their cruelty, and Ferdinand in
their extortion.

It was the dark fate of Almamen, as of most premature and heated
liberators of the enslaved, to double the terrors and the evils he had
sought to cure. The warning arrived at Granada at a time in which the
vizier, Jusef, had received the commands of his royal master, still at
the siege of Salobrena, to use every exertion to fill the wasting
treasuries. Fearful of new exactions against the Moors, the vizier
hailed, as a message from Heaven, so just a pretext for a new and
sweeping impost on the Jews. The spendthrift violence of the mob was
restrained, because it was headed by the authorities, who were wisely
anxious that the state should have no rival in the plunder it required;
and the work of confiscation and robbery was carried on with a majestic
and calm regularity, which redounded no less to the credit of Jusef than
it contributed to the coffers of the king.

It was late, one evening, when Ximen was making his usual round through
the chambers of Almamen's house. As he glanced around at the various
articles of wealth and luxury, he ever and anon burst into a low, fitful
chuckle, rubbed his lean hands, and mumbled out, "If my master should