valley and the monk Joseph went his simple way, rendering service where he could, preaching, by the example of his daily life and his unselfish devotion, a sermon more powerful than his lips could utter. Through it all the Moor watched him carefully, safeguarding him as a provident farmer fattens a sheep for the slaughter. Once a year the father rode southward to Cordova, bringing news with his return that delighted the countryside, news that penetrated even the walls of San Sebastian and filled the good men therein with gladness. It seemed that the maiden Zahra was becoming a great musician. She pursued her studies in the famous school of Ali-Zeriab, and not even Moussali himself, that most gifted of Arabian singers, could bring more tender notes from the lute than could this fair daughter of Catalonia. Her skill transcended that of Al Farabi, for the harp, the tabor, and the mandolin were wedded to her dancing fingers; and, most marvelous of all, her soul was so filled with poetry that her verses were sung from Valencia to Cadiz. It was said that she could move men to laughter, to tears, to deeds of heroism–that she could even lull them to sleep by the potency of her magic. She had once played before the Caliph under amazing circumstances.
The Prince of True Believers, so ran the story, had quarreled with his favorite wife, and in consequence had fallen into a state of melancholy so deep as to threaten his health and to alarm his ministers. Do what they would, he still declined, until in despair the Hadjeb sent for Zahra, daughter of Abul Malek. She came, surrounded by her servants, and sang before El Hakkam. So cunningly did she contrive her verses, so tender were her airs, so potent were her fluttering fingers, that those within hearing were moved to tears, and the unhappy lover himself became so softened that he sped to the arms of his offended beauty and a reconciliation occurred. In token of his gratitude he had despatched a present of forty thousand drachmas of gold to the singer, and her renown went broadcast like a flame.
When Abul Malek heard of this he praised his God, and, gathering his horsemen, he set out to bring his daughter home, for the time was ripe.
One evening in early spring, that magic season when nature is most charming, Fray Joseph, returning to his cell, heard from behind a screen of verdure alongside his path a woman singing. But was this singing? he asked himself. Could mortal lips give birth to melody like this? It was the sighing of summer winds through rustling leaves, the music of crystal brooks on stony courses, the full-throated worship of birds. Joseph listened, enthralled, like a famished pilgrim in the desert. His simple soul, attuned to harmonies of the woodland, leaped in answer; his fancy, starved by years of churchly rigor, quickened like a prisoner at the light of day. Not until the singer had ceased did he resume his way, and through his dreams that night ran the song of birds, the play of zephyrs, the laughter of bubbling springs.
A few evenings later he heard the voice again, and paused with lips apart, with heart consumed by eagerness. It was some slave girl busied among the vines of Abul Malek, he decided, for she translated all the fragmentary airs that float through summer evenings–the songs of sweethearts, the tender airs of motherhood, the croon of distant waterfalls, the voice of sleepy locusts–and yet she wove them into an air that carried words. It was most wonderful.
Joseph felt a strong desire to mingle his voice with the singer’s, but he knew his throat to be harsh and stiff from chanting Latin phrases. He knew not whither the tune would lead, and yet, when she sang, he followed, realizing gladly that she voiced the familiar music of his soul. He was moved to seek her out and to talk with her, until he remembered with a start that she was a woman and he a priest.
Each night he shaped his course so as to bring him past the spot where the mysterious singer labored, and in time he began to feel the stirring of a very earthly curiosity, the which he manfully fought down. Through the long, heated hours of the day he hummed her airs and repeated her verses, longing for the twilight hour which would bring the angel voice from out the vineyard. Eventually the girl began to sing of love, and Joseph echoed the songs in solitude, his voice as rasping and untrue as that of a frog.
Then, one evening, he heard that which froze him in his tracks. The singer accompanied herself upon some instrument the like of which he had never imagined. The music filled the air with heavenly harmony, and it set him to vibrating like a tautened string; it rippled forth, softer than the breeze, more haunting than the perfume of the frangipani. Joseph stood like a man in a trance, forgetful of all things save these honeyed sounds, half minded to believe himself favored by the music of the seraphim.
Never had he dreamed of such an intoxication. And then, as if to intensify his wild exultation, the maiden sang a yearning strain of passion and desire.
The priest began to tremble. His heart-beats quickened, his senses became unbridled; something new and mighty awoke within him, and he was filled with fever. His huge thews tightened, his muscles swelled as if for battle, yet miracle of miracles, he was melting like a child in tears! With his breath tugging at his throat, he turned off the path and parted the verdure, going as soundlessly as an animal; and all the while his head was whirling, his eyes took note of nothing. He was drawn as by a thousand invisible strings, which wound him toward the hidden singer.
But suddenly the music ended in a peal of rippling laughter and there came the rustle of silken garments. Fray Joseph found himself in a little open glade, so recently vacated that a faint perfume still lingered to aggravate his nostrils. Beyond stretched the vineyard of the Moor, a tangle of purpling vines into the baffling mazes of which the singer had evidently fled.
So she had known of his presence all along, the monk reflected, dizzily. It followed, therefore, that she must have waited every evening for his coming, and that her songs had been sung for him. An ecstasy swept over him. Regaining the path, he went downward to the monastery, his brain afire, his body tingling.
Joseph was far too simple for self-analysis, and he was too enchanted by those liquid strains to know what all this soul confusion foretold; he merely realized that he had made the most amazing of discoveries, that the music of the spheres had been translated for his privileged ears, that a door had opened allowing him to glimpse a glory hidden from other mortals. It was not the existence of the singer, but of the music, that excited him to adoration. He longed to possess it, to take it with him, and to cherish it like a thing of substance, to worship it in his solitude.
The song had been of love; but, after all, love was the burden of his religion. Love filled the universe, it kept the worlds a-swinging, it was the thing that dominated all nature and made sweet even the rigid life of an anchorite. It was doubtless love which awoke this fierce yet tender yearning in him now, this ecstasy that threatened to smother him. Love was a holy and an impersonal thing, nevertheless it blazed and melted in his every vein, and it made him very human.
Through all that night Fray Joseph lay upon his couch, rapt, thankful, wondering. But in the morning he had changed. His thoughts became unruly, and he recalled again that tantalizing perfume, the shy tones of that mischief laughter. He began to long intensely to behold the author of this music-magic, to behold her just once, for imagination graced her with a thousand witching forms. He wished ardently, also, to speak with her about this miracle, this hidden thing called melody, for the which he had starved his life, unknowingly.
As the afternoon aged he began to fear that he had frightened her, and therefore when he came to tread his homeward path it was with a strange commingling of eagerness and of dread. But while still at a distance, he heard her singing as usual, and, nearing the spot, he stopped to drink in her message. Again the maiden sang of love; again the monk felt his spirit leaping as she fed his starving soul even more adroitly than she fingered the vibrant strings. At last her wild, romantic verses became more unrestrained; the music quickened until, regardless of all things, Fray Joseph burst the thicket asunder and stood before her, huge, exalted, palpitant.
“I, too, have sung those songs,” he panted, hoarsely. “That melody has lived in me since time began; but I am mute. And you? Who are you? What miracle bestowed this gift–?”
He paused, for with the ending of the song his frenzy was dying and his eyes were clearing. There, casting back his curious gaze, was a bewitching Moorish maid whose physical perfection seemed to cause the very place to glow. The slanting sunbeams shimmered upon her silken garments; from her careless hand drooped an instrument of gold and of tortoise-shell, an instrument strange to the eyes of the monk. Her feet were cased in tiny slippers of soft Moroccan leather; her limbs, rounded and supple and smooth as ivory, were outlined beneath wide flowing trousers which were gathered at the ankles. A tunic of finest fabric was flung back, displaying a figure of delicate proportions, half recumbent now upon the sward.
The loveliness of Moorish women has been heralded to the world; it is not strange that this maid, renowned even among her own people, should have struck the rustic priest to dumbness. He stood transfixed; and yet he wondered not, for it was seemly that such heavenly music should have sprung from the rarest of mortals. He saw that her hair, blacker than the night, rippled in a glorious cascade below her waist, and that her teeth embellished with the whiteness of alabaster the vermilion lips which smiled at him.
That same intoxicating scent, sweeter than the musk of Hadramaut, enveloped her; her fingers were jeweled with nails which flashed in rivalry with their burden of precious stones as she toyed with the whispering strings.
For a time she regarded the monk silently.
“I am Zahra,” she said at length, and Joseph thrilled at the tones of her voice. “To me, all things are music.”
“Zahra! ‘Flower of the World,'” he repeated, wonderingly. After an instant he continued, harshly, “Then you are the daughter of the Moor?”
“Yes. Abul Malek. You have heard of me?”
“Who has not? Aye, you were rightly called ‘Flower of the World.’ But–this music! It brought me here against my will; it pulls at me like straining horses. Why is that? What wizardry do you possess? What strange chemistry?”
She laughed lightly. “I possess no magic art. We are akin, you and I. That is all. You, of all men, are attuned to me.”
“No,” he said, heavily. “You are an Infidel, I am a Christian. There is no bond between us.”
“So?” she mocked. “And yet, when I sing, you can hear the nightingales of Aden; I can take you with me to the fields of battle, or to the innermost halls of the Alhambra. I have watched you many times, Brother Joseph, and I have never failed to play upon your soul as I play upon my own. Are we not, then, attuned?”
“Your veil!” he cried, accusingly. “I have never beheld a Moorish woman’s face until now.”
Her lids drooped, as if to hide the fire behind them, and she replied, without heeding his words: “Sit here, beside me. I will play for you.”
“Yes, yes!” he cried, eagerly. “Play! Play on for me! But–I will stand.”
Accordingly she resumed her instrument; and o’er its strings her rosy fingers twinkled, while with witchery of voice and beauty she enthralled him. Again she sang of love, reclinging there like an _houri_ fit to grace the paradise of her Prophet; and the giant monk became a puppet in her hands. Now, although she sang of love, it was a different love from that which Joseph knew and worshiped; and as she toyed with him his hot blood warred with his priestly devotion until he was racked with the tortures of the pit. But she would not let him go. She lured him with her eyes, her lips, her luscious beauty, until he heard no song whatever, until he no longer saw visions of spiritual beatitude, but flesh, ripe flesh, aquiver and awake to him.
A cry burst from him. Turning, he tore himself away and went crashing blindly through the thicket like a bull pursued. On, on he fled, down to the monastery and into the coolness of his cell, where, upon the smooth, worn flags, he knelt and struggled with this evil thing which accursed his soul.
For many days Joseph avoided the spot which had witnessed his temptation; but of nights, when he lay spent and weary with his battle, through the grating of his window came the song of the Saracen maid and the whisper of her golden lute. He knew she was calling to him, therefore he beat his breast and scourged himself to cure his longing. But night after night she sang from the heights above, and the burden of her song was ever the same, of one who waited and of one who came.
Bit by bit she wore down the man’s resistance, then drew him up through the groves of citron and pomegrante, into the grape fields; time and again he fled. Closer and closer she lured him, until one day he touched her flesh–woman’s flesh–and forgot all else. But now it was her turn to flee.
She poised like a sunbeam just beyond his reach, her bosom heaving, her lips as ripe and full as the grapes above, her eyes afire with invitation. In answer to his cry she made a glowing promise, subtle, yet warm and soft, as of the flesh.
“To-night, when the moon hangs over yonder pass, I shall play on the balcony outside my window. Beneath is a door, unbarred. Come, for I shall be alone in all the castle, and there you will find music made flesh, and flesh made music.” Then she was gone.
The soul of the priest had been in torment heretofore, but chaos engulfed it during the hours that followed. He was like a man bereft of reason; he burned with fever, yet his whole frame shook as from a wintry wind. He prayed, or tried to, but his eyes beheld no vision save a waiting Moorish maid with hair like night, his stammering tongue gave forth no Latin, but repeated o’er and o’er her parting promise:
“There you will find music made flesh and flesh made music.”
He realized that the foul fiend had him by the throat, and undertook to cast him off; but all the time he knew that when the moon came, bringing with it the cadence of a song, he would go, even though his going led to perdition. And go he did, groveling in his misery. His sandals spurned the rocky path when he heard the voice of Zahra sighing through the branches; then, when he had reached the castle wall, he saw her bending toward him from the balcony above.
“I come to you,” she whispered; and an instant later her form showed white against the blackness of the low stone door in front of him. There, in the gloom, for one brief instant, her yielding body met his, her hands reached upward and drew his face down to her own; then out from his hungry arms she glided, and with rippling laughter fled into the blackness.
“Zahra!” he cried.
“Come!” she whispered, and when he hesitated, “Do you fear to follow?”
“Zahra!” he repeated; but his voice was strange, and he tore at the cloth that bound his throat, stumbling after her, guided only by her voice.
Always she was just beyond his reach; always she eluded him; yet never did he lose the perfume of her presence nor the rustle of her silken garments. Over and over he cried her name, until at last he realized from the echo of his calling that he had come into a room of great dimensions and that the girl was gone.
For an instant he was in despair, until her voice reached him from above:
“I do but test you, Christian priest. I am waiting.”
“‘Flower of the World,'” he stammered, hoarsely. “Whence lead the stairs?”
“And do you love me, then?” she queried, in a tone that set him all ablaze.
“Zahra,” he repeated, “I shall perish for want of you.”
“How do you measure this devotion?” she insisted, softly. “Will it cool with the dawn, or are you mine in truth forever and all time?”
“I have no thought save that of you. Come, Light of my Soul, or I shall die.”
“Do you then adore me above all things, earthly and heavenly, that you forsake your vows? Answer, that my arms may enfold you.”
He groaned like a man upon a rack, and the agony of that cry was proof conclusive of his abject surrender.
Then, through the dead, black silence of the place there came a startling sound. It was a peal of laughter, loud, evil, triumphant; and, as if it had been a signal, other mocking voices took it up, until the great vault rang to a fiendish din.
“Ho! Hassam! Elzemah! Close the doors!” cried the voice of Abul Malek. “Bring the lights.”
There followed a ponderous clanging and the rattle of chains, the while Fray Joseph stood reeling in his tracks. Then suddenly from every side burst forth the radiance of many lamps. Torches sprang into flame, braziers of resin wood began to smoke, flambeaux were lit, and, half blinded by the glare, the Christian monk stood revealed in the hall of Abul Malek.
He cast his eyes about, but on every side he beheld grinning men of swarthy countenance, and at sight of his terror the hellish merriment broke forth anew, until the whole place thundered with it. Facing him, upon an ornamental balcony, stood the Moor, and beside him, with elbows on the balustrade and face alight with sinister enjoyment, stood his daughter.
Stunned by his betrayal, Joseph imploringly pronounced her name, at which a fresh guffaw resounded. Then above the clamor she inquired, with biting malice:
“Dost thou any longer doubt, oh, Christian, that I adore thee?” At this her father and her brothers rocked back and forth, as if suffocated by the humor of this jest.
The lone man turned, in mind to flee, but every entrance to the hall was closed, and at each portal stood a grinning Saracen. He bowed his shaven head, and his shame fell slowly upon him.
“You have me trapped,” he said. “What shall my punishment be?”
“This,” answered the Moorish lord; “to acknowledge once again, before us all, the falseness of your faith.”
“That I have never done; that I can never do,” said Joseph.
“Nay! But a moment ago you confessed that you adored my daughter above all things, earthly or heavenly. You forswore your vows for her. Repeat it, then.”
“I have sinned before God; but I still acknowledge Him and crave His mercy,” said the wretched priest.
“Hark you, Joseph. You are the best of monks. Have you ever done evil before this night?”
“My life has been clean, but the flesh is weak. It was the witchcraft of Satan in that woman’s music. I prayed for strength, but I was powerless. My soul shall pay the penalty.”
“What sort of God is this who snares His holiest disciple, with the lusts of the flesh?” mocked Abul Malek. “Did not your prayers mount up so high? Or is His power insufficient to forestall the devil? Bah! There is but one true God, and Mohammed is His Prophet. These many years have I labored to rend your veil of holiness asunder and to expose your faith to ridicule and laughter. This have I done to-night.”
“Stop!” cried the tortured monk. “Bring forth a lance.”
“Nay! Nay! You shall hear me through,” gloated Abul Malek; and again Joseph bowed his tonsured head, murmuring:
“It is my punishment.”
Ringed about thus by his enemies, the priest stood meekly, while the sweat came out upon his face; as the Saracen mocked and jeered at him he made no answer, except to move his lips in whispered grayer. Had it not been for this sign they might have thought him changed to stone, so motionless and so patient did he stand. How long the baiting lasted no one knew; it may have been an hour, then Joseph’s passive silence roused the anger of the overlord, who became demoniac in his rage. His followers joined in harrying the victim, until the place became a babel. Finally Elzemah stepped forward, torch in hand, and spat upon the giant black-robed figure.
The monk’s face whitened, it grew ghastly; but he made no movement. Then in a body the infidels rushed forth to follow the example of Abul Malek’s son. They swarmed about the Christian, jeering, cursing, spitting, snatching at his garments, until their master cried:
“Enough! The knave has water in his veins. His blood has soured. Deserted by his God, his frame has withered and his vigor fled.”
“Yes,” echoed his daughter. “He is great only in bulk. Had he been a Man I might have loved him; but the evil has fled out of him, leaving nothing but his cassock. Off with his robe, Elzemah. Let us see if aught remains.”
With swift movement her brother tore at the monk’s habit, baring his great bosom. At this insult to his cloth a frightful change swept over the victim. He upheaved his massive shoulders, his gleaming head rose high, and in the glaring light they saw that his face had lost all sweetness and humility; it was now the visage of a madman. All fleshly passion stored through thirty years of cloister life blazed forth, consuming reason and intelligence; with a sweep of his mighty arms he cleared a space about him, hurling his enemies aside as if they were made of straw. He raised his voice above the din, cursing God and men and Moors. As they closed in upon him he snatched from the hands of a lusty slave a massive wrought-iron brazier, and whirling it high above his head, he sent its glowing coals flying into the farthest corners of the room. Then with this weapon he laid about him right and left, while men fell like grain before the reaper.
“At him!” shouted Abul Malek, from his balcony. “Pull down the weapons from the walls! The fool is mad!”
Zahra clutched at her father’s sleeve and pointed to a distant corner, where a tongue of flame was licking the dry woodwork and hangings. Her eyes were flashing and her lips were parted; she bent forward, following the priest with eagerness.
“Allah be praised!” she breathed. “He is a Man!”
Elzemah strove to sheathe his poinard in the monk’s bare breast, but the brazier crushed him down. Across the wide floor raged the contest, but the mighty priest was irresistible. Hassam, seeing that the priest was fighting toward the balcony, flung himself upon the stairs, crying to his father and his sister to be gone. By now the castle echoed with a frightful din through which arose a sinister crackling. The light increased moment by moment, and there came the acrid smell of smoke.
Men left the maniac to give battle to the other fury. Some fled to the doors and fought with their clumsy fastenings, but as they flung them back a draught sucked through, changing the place into a raging furnace.
With his back against the stairs, Hassam hewed at the monk with his scimitar; he had done as well had he essayed to fell an oak with a single blow. Up over him rushed the giant, to the balcony above, where Abul Malek and his daughter stood at bay in the trap of their own manufacture. There, in the glare of the mounting flames, Fray Joseph sank his mighty fingers through the Moor’s black beard.
The place by now was suffocating, and the roar of the conflagration had drowned all other sounds. Men wrapped their robes about their heads and hurled themselves blindly at the doors, fighting with one another, with the licking flames, with the dead that clogged the slippery flags. But the maid remained. She tore at the tattered cassock of the priest, crying into his ear:
“Come, Joseph! We may yet escape.”
He let the writhing Abul Malek slip from out his grasp and peered at her through the smother.
“Thou knowest me not?” she queried. “I am Zahra.” Her arms entwined his neck for a second time that night, but with a furious cry he raised his hands and smote her down at his feet, then he fled back to the stairs and plunged down into the billows that raged ahead of the fresh night wind.
The bells of San Sebastian were clanging the alarm, the good monks were toiling up the path toward the inferno which lit the heavens, when, black against the glare, they saw a giant figure approaching. It came reeling toward them, vast, mighty, misshapen. Not until it was in their very midst did they recognize their brother, Joseph. He was bent and broken, he was singed of body and of raiment, he gibbered foolishly; he passed them by and went staggering to his cell. Long ere they reached the castle it was but a seething mountain of flame; and in the morning naught remained of Abul Malek’s house but heated ruins.
Strange tales were rife concerning the end of the Moor and of his immediate kin, but the monks could make little out of them, for they were garbled and too ridiculous for belief. No Mussulman who survived the fire could speak coherently of what had happened in the great hall, nor could Fray Joseph tell his story, for he lay stricken with a malady which did not leave him for many weeks. Even when he recovered he did not talk; for although his mind was clear on most matters, nay, although he was as simple and as devout as ever, a kind Providence had blotted out all memory of Zahra, of his sin, and of the temptation that had beset his flesh.
So it is that even to this day “The Teeth of the Moor” remains a term of mystery to most of the monks of San Sebastian.