These Bernardo passes with a hasty salute, which they respectfully return, then on into another and another chamber floored with coloured Moorish tiles, into the last, a hugely proportioned hall, the carved roof supported by lofty pillars. This hall, through the window of which the lightning plays, though void of furniture, is far more ornate than the rest, seeing that at the farther end, on a raised platform, surmounted by a dusty canopy, is a throne, on which a royal chair is placed, used on such rare occasions as when Alonso receives his _compañeros_ and knights in state. Nothing can exceed the neglect of this primitive apartment, now seen in the deep shadow of the coming storm. Trophies of early Gothic armour are fixed on hangings of once embroidered damask; but so little care has been taken that the nails have given way, the tapestry has fallen, and the mortar which knit together the solid blocks of stone is visible. Before the throne stands a long wooden table, on which rests a rich enamelled crucifix, set with jewels, and huge candelabra of silver, holding waxen torches such as are used in churches to light up the shrines of saints, a rude attempt at splendour which leaves the rest more bare. Seats there are with time-stained leather coverings, and a royal chair inlaid with ivory, as was also the curiously formed footstool. Two low doors open in a recess behind the throne into two opposite turrets, one leading to the private apartments of the king, who lives alone--Queen Berta being relegated to a distant part of the palace, which formed three sides of a square, fronting the cathedral, where there is an array of delicately carved saints and martyrs niched round the deep curves of three arched portals under two turreted towers;--the other door opening into a small chapel, where King Alonso, kneeling on the bare stones, passes a great part of the day and often of the night, in ecstatic prayer and meditation. Not for a moment did Bernardo hesitate. As he knocked on the oaken panels interspersed with heavy nails, which opened to the chapel, the latch yielded to his hand, and he entered as a blinding flash of lightning gleamed bright and strong and the thunder broke loudly overhead. An instant after, all had darkened into so profound a gloom [Illustration: The Generalife, Granada.] [Illustration] that at first nothing was visible, except the dim outline of a gilt _retablo_ behind the altar, on which a light burned day and night before the ever-present host and such sacred bones and relics as had been saved from desecration by the Moors. “Who dares to break in on my devotions?” cried a harsh voice, speaking as it were from the depths of sudden night before a shrine concealed in the sunken curvings of the wall. “Begone! leave me to commune with the saints.”