of wind, which sometimes sweep in sudden winter from the snows of the
Sierra Nevada, howled through the tossing groves, and along the winding
streets. But the tempest seemed to heighten, as if by the sympathy of
the elements, the popular storm and whirlwind. Brandishing arms and
torches, and gaunt with hunger, the dark forms of the frantic Moors
seemed like ghouls or spectres, rather than mortal men; as, apparently
without an object, save that of venting their own disquietude, or
exciting the fears of earth, they swept through the desolate city.

In the broad space of the Vivarrambla the crowd halted, irresolute in all
else, but resolved at least that something for Granada should yet be
done. They were for the most armed in their Moorish fashion; but they
were wholly without leaders: not a noble, a magistrate, an officer, would
have dreamed of the hopeless enterprise of violating the truce with
Ferdinand. It was a mere popular tumult--the madness of a mob;--but not
the less formidable, for it was an Eastern mob, and a mob with sword and
shaft, with buckler and mail--the mob by which oriental empires have been
built and overthrown! There, in the splendid space that had witnessed
the games and tournaments of that Arab and African chivalry--there, where
for many a lustrum kings had reviewed devoted and conquering armies--
assembled those desperate men; the loud winds agitating their tossing
torches that struggled against the moonless night.

"Let us storm the Alhambra!" cried one of the band: "let us seize
Boabdil, and place him in the midst of us; let us rush against the
Christians, buried in their proud repose!"

"Lelilies, Lelilies!--the Keys and the Crescent!" shouted the mob.

The shout died: and at the verge of the space was suddenly heard a once