A Catastrophe 



" Choose, oh king ! Here is thy sword to slay. Here 

 is thine own gore to spill. Treachery lurks within thy 

 doors ; and a son of thy loins, whom thou least suspectest, 

 goeth about to slay thee. I may not tell thee his name. 

 But he warned — farewell." 



The cunning astrologer, Arif el Cauaqueb, had justly cal- 

 culated on the cruel disposition of King Faseq. He, with- 

 out more ado, not knowing which of his sons might be the 

 culprit, slew them all. But the Virgin, who had not been 

 idle durinor these diabolical transactions, sent a messenger 

 to Abiadah, in a dream simultaneous with the king's, warn- 

 ing her to fly with her son; which she accordingly did before 

 daybreak, and came to a cave in the rocks between the Jucar 

 and the Huecar, which were then bare and solitary, without 

 any habitation of man. 



The king, with his astrologer, was preparing to search the 

 whole region, when the vengeance of Heaven overtook 

 them. It rained a shower of flame on the wicked city, 

 which smelted the very stones together, sealing up Faseq 

 and Arif, with all their infamous company of evil spirits, in 

 the molten ruins. But yet it is said that one may trace 

 the lines of the streets running between great masses 

 of crumbling rock which seem to have been blocks of 

 building. 



As to Cuenc and his mother, after this catastrophe, they 

 gathered their subjects together and built the city of 

 Cuenca on the rock beneath which they had taken shelter 

 in their flight. 



" I never yet heard this history," said my companion, 

 *' and it seems indeed too strange to be credible ; but in 

 some points it is verisimilar, for the lines of the streets may 

 be traced, and it is sometimes called the Ciudad encantada^ 

 from its resemblance to the form of a city." 



333 



