"We have seen," they said on their return, "their king, who was an old man, become a young one. We have to do with a nation of prophets who can change their appearance at will and transform themselves into any shape they like. Our advice is that we should grant Musa his demands, for men like these we cannot resist." The stratagem of the Arab was successful, the gates were opened, and Merida became a captive city. The people were left their private wealth and were free to come and go as they would, with the exception of some of their noblest, who were to be held as hostages. Among these was the widowed Queen Exilona. She was still young and beautiful. By paying tribute she was allowed to live unmolested, and in this way she passed to the second phase of her romantic career. Arab fancy has surrounded her history with many surprising incidents, and Lope de Vega, the Spanish dramatist, has made her the heroine of a romantic play, but her actual history is so full of interest that we need not draw contributions from fable or invention. When Musa went to Syria at the command of the caliph he left his son Abdul-Aziz as emir or governor of Spain. The new emir was a young, handsome, and gallant man. He had won fame in Africa, and gained new repute for wisdom and courage in Spain. The Moorish princess who had become a Gothic queen was now a hostage in his hands, and her charms moved his susceptible heart. His persuasive tongue and attractive person were not without their effect upon the fair captive, who a second time lost her heart to her captor, and agreed once more to become a bride. Her first husband had been the king of Gothic Spain. Her second was the ruler of Moorish Spain. She declined to yield her Christian creed, but she became his wife and the queen of his heart, called by him Ummi-Assam, a name of endearment common in Arab households. Exilona was ambitious, and sought to induce her new husband to assume the style of a king. She made him a crown of gold and precious stones which her soft persuasion induced him to wear. She bowed in his presence as if to a royal potentate, and to oblige the nobles to do the same she induced him to have the door-way of his audience chamber made so low that no one could enter it without making an involuntary bow. She even tried to convert him to Christianity, and built a low door to her oratory, so that any one entering would seem to bow to the cross. These arts of the queen proved fatal to the prince whom she desired to exalt, for this and other stories were told to the caliph, who was seeking some excuse to proceed against the sons of Musa, whose ruin he had sworn. It was told him that Abdul-Aziz was seeking to make Spain independent and was bowing before strange gods. Soliman asked no more, but sent the order for his death.