Read Patrañas; or, Spanish Stories, Legendary and Traditional Page 44

  MOORISH REMNANTS.

  I.

  ISSY-BEN-ARAN.

  Though the Moors were always hated in Spain, first as a conqueringand afterwards as a conquered race, yet many poetical traces of theirtraditions and maxims remain in the popular literature of the country;and in some of these they appear in a very advantageous light, though,of course, the national hatred loved rather to record those of acontrary import.

  Issy-ben-Aran was a venerable muleteer, well-known in all the townsof Granada for his worth and integrity--an elder and a father amonghis tribe.

  One day, as he was journeying over a wild and sequestered trackof the Sierra Nevada, he heard a cry of pain proceeding from theroad-side. The good old man immediately turned back to render helpto the unfortunate. He found a young man lying among the sharp pointsof an aloe hedge, groaning as if at the last gasp.

  "What ails thee? Son, speak," said Issy-ben-Aran.

  "I was journeying along the road, father, an hour agone, as full ofhealth as you may be, when I was set upon by six robbers, who knockedme off my mule, and not satisfied with carrying off all I possessedin the world, beat me till they thought I was dead, and then flungmy body into this aloe hedge."

  Issy-ben-Aran gave him a draught of water from his own bota [105]and bound his head with linen cloths steeped in fresh water, then heset him on his own beast to carry him at a gentle pace to the nearesttown and further care for him, with great strain of his feeble armslifting him tenderly into the saddle.

  No sooner was the stranger well mounted, with his feet firmly set inthe stirrups, than, drawing himself up with no further appearance ofweakness, he dug his heels into the horse's side, and setting up aloud laugh, started off at a rapid gallop.

  Issy-ben-Aran, to whom every stone of the road was known as the linesupon his right hand, immediately scrambled down the mountain-side,so as to confront the stranger at the turning of the road.

  "Hold!" he cried. And the nag, who loved his master well, stood stilland refused to move for all the stranger's urging.

  "Son! think not I am come to reproach you," said the old man. "Ifyou desire the horse, even take it at a gift; you shall not burdenyour conscience with a theft on my account."

  "Thank you!" scoffed the heartless stranger. "It is fine to make amerit of necessity; but I have nothing to do but ride to the nearesttown, and sell the brute."

  "Beware! and do it not," said the old man. "The nag of Issy-ben-Aranis known at every market in the kingdom, and any man of all our tribeswho frequents them, finding you with him, will reckon you have killedme, and slay you in turn. Even for this have I come to you: take thisscroll to show that you have it of me as a free gift, and so no harmshall come to you.

  "Only one condition I exact. Bind yourself to me, that you tell no manof what has passed between us; lest peradventure, should it becomeknown, a man hearing his brother cry out in distress might say,'This man is feigning, that he may take my horse like the horse ofIssy-ben-Aran,' and the man who is really in danger be thus left toperish miserably."