"Woe! woe! woe! to Granada!" exclaimed the voice; "its hour of desolation approaches.

The ruins of Zahara will fall upon our heads; my spirit tells me that the end of our empire is at hand." All shrank back aghast, and left the denouncer of woe standing alone in the centre of the hall.

He was an ancient and hoary man in the rude attire of a dervise.

Age had withered his form without quenching the fire of his spirit, which glared in baleful lustre from his eyes.
He was (say the Arabian historians) one of those holy men termed santons who pass their lives in hermitages in fasting, meditation, and prayer until they attain to the purity of saints and the foresight of prophets.
"He was," says the indignant Fray Antonio Agapida, "a son of Belial, one of those fanatic infidels possessed by the devil who are sometimes permitted to predict the truth to their followers, but with the proviso that their predictions shall be of no avail." The voice of the santon resounded through the lofty hall of the Alhambra, and struck silence and awe into the crowd of courtly sycophants.

Muley Abul Hassan alone was unmoved: he eyed the hoary anchorite with scorn as he stood dauntless before him, and treated his predictions as the ravings of a maniac.