Now it is the turn of the fiery Lord of Benevente, who presses forward, and, with words of passion on his lips, rends the sceptre from the hand of the image. No sooner is this done than Don Diego Lopez de Zuniga seizes the figure and flings it headlong from the throne to be torn and burned by the common people, who think it a fine thing to fall upon even the semblance of a king. At the same moment the confederate nobles lift the Infante Don Alfonso on their shoulders and place him on the vacant throne. To the crafty statesman and intriguer, the Marqués de Villena, falls the honour of investing him with the insignia of royalty. The archbishop does [Illustration: View of the Alhambra and the Sierra Nevada, from the Church of San Nicholas, on the Albaicin.] homage and kisses his hand, followed by each noble in his turn, advancing towards the blushing prince, who had been with difficulty prevailed on to act this part during the life of his brother. The new king then mounts on a milk-white charger, covered with gold trappings, nets, feathers, and ribbons, and attended by all the confederates (or conspirators, as they might be called), and the vast multitude, passes up the hill to Avila, amid universal acclamations, to the Cathedral, where the apse forms a strong bastion in the city wall. And here he is blessed under the gloom of deeply stained windows, while bishops pronounce warlike orations in his honour to the boom of cannon and the firing of arquebuses. * * * * * But an unforeseen misfortune befell the confederate nobles. The young Alfonso died. Nothing daunted, however, they at once named his sister, the Infanta Isabel, Princess of the Asturias, heiress to the crown. CHAPTER XXIII Ferdinand and Isabel We are again in the great room in the palace of Valladolid, with its low roof and deep embowered casement, looking on the richly carved front of San Pablo, in which Don Fadique dared to avow his ill-omened passion to poor Blanche of Navarre. As then, it is evening, and a warm atmosphere of tempered light plays about the statues and foliage, tracery and shields of the Gothic façade that rises with so much majesty in front, and flocks of grey pigeons circle round the towers to perch upon the gargoyles and escutcheons of the deeply arched portal, a noble specimen of the flamboyant style. Now another princess sits in the same place, under the glow of the coloured glass of the casement, glinting in upon the dusky panels of the room, so dim and low and long that the farther end has already melted into shadow. She is young too, this princess, barely sixteen, and fair-complexioned, with blue eyes and well-marked features, altogether a noble head, set off by the abundant coils of auburn hair, arranged under a jewelled coif; but there the resemblance ends.