He saw the unmitigated miseries of his brethern, and he remembered and repeated his vow.

His name changed, his kindred dead, none remembered, in the mature Almamen, the beardless child of Issachar, the Jew.

He had long, indeed, deemed it advisable to disguise his faith; and was known, throughout the African kingdoms, but as the potent santon, or the wise magician.
This fame soon lifted him, in Granada, high in the councils of the court.

Admitted to the intimacy of Muley Hassan, with Boabdil, and the queen mother, he had conspired against that monarch; and had lived, at least, to avenge his father upon the royal murderer.

He was no less intimate with Boabdil; but steeled against fellowship or affection for all men out of the pale of his faith, he saw in the confidence of the king only the blindness of a victim.
Serpent as he was, he cared not through what mire of treachery and fraud he trailed his baleful folds, so that, at last, he could spring upon his prey.