[138] The “Inventario” of Villegas was twice printed, the first edition in 4to, 1565, and the second in small 12mo, 1577, 144 leaves;--both times at Medina del Campo, of which its author is supposed to have been a native, and both times with a note especially prefixed, signifying that the first license to print it was granted in 1551. Rodrigo de Narvaez, Alcayde of Alora, a fortress on the Spanish border, grows weary of a life of inaction, from which he had been for some time suffering, and goes out one night with a few followers, in mere wantonness, to seek adventures. Of course they soon find what, in such a spirit, they seek. Abindarraez, a noble Moor, belonging to the persecuted and exiled family of the Abencerrages, comes well mounted and well armed along the path they are watching, and sings cheerily through the stillness of the night,-- In Granada was I born, In Cartama was I bred; But in Coyn by Alora Lives the maiden I would wed. A fight follows at once, and the gallant young Moor is taken prisoner; but his dejected manner, after a resistance so brave as he had made, surprises his conqueror, who, on inquiry, finds that his captive was on his way that very night to a secret marriage with the lady of his love, daughter of the lord of Coyn, a Moorish fortress near at hand. Immediately on learning this, the Spanish knight, like a true cavalier, releases the young Moor from his present thraldom, on condition that he will voluntarily return in three days and submit himself again to his fate. The noble Moor keeps his word, bringing with him his stolen bride, to whom, by the intervention of the generous Spaniard with the king of Granada, her father is reconciled, and so the tale ends to the honor and content of all the parties who appear in it. Some passages in it are beautiful, like the first declaration of his love by Abindarraez, as described by himself; and the darkness that, he says, fell upon his very soul, when his lady, the next day, was carried away by her father, “as if,” he adds, “the sun had been suddenly eclipsed over a man wandering amidst wild and precipitous mountains.” His Moorish honor and faith, too, are characteristically and finely expressed, when, on the approach of the time for his return to captivity, he reveals to his bride the pledge he had given, and in reply to her urgent offer to send a rich ransom and break his word, he says, “Surely I may not _now_ fall into so great a fault; for if, when formerly I came to you all alone, I kept truly my pledged faith, my duty to keep it is doubled now that I am yours. Therefore, questionless, I shall return to Alora, and place myself in the Alcayde’s hands; and when I have done what I ought to do, he must also do what to him seems right.”