f the repulse of the Moslems were received with unbounded
joy throughout Spain. The deepest sympathy had been felt for the brave
men who, planted on the outposts of the empire, seemed to have been
abandoned to their fate. The king shared in the public sentiment, and
showed his sense of the gallant conduct of Alcaudete and his soldiers,
by the honors and emoluments he bestowed on them. That nobleman, besides
the grant of a large annual revenue, was made viceroy of Navarre. His
brother, Don Martin de Cordova, received the _encomienda_ of Hornachos,
with the sum of six thousand ducats. Officers of inferior rank obtained
the recompense due to their merits. Even the common soldiers were not
forgotten; and the government, with politic liberality, settled pensions
on the wives and children of those who had perished in the siege.[1286]

Philip now determined to follow up his success; and, instead of
confining himself to the defensive, he prepared to carry the war into
the enemy's country. His first care, however, was to restore the
fortifications of Mazarquivir, which soon rose from their ruins in
greater strength and solidity than before. He then projected an
expedition against Penon de Velez de la Gomera, a place situated to the
west of his own possessions on the Barbary coast. It was a rocky island
fortress, which, from the great strength of its defences, as well as
from its natural position, was deemed impregnable. It was held by a
fierce corsair, whose name had long been terrible in these seas. In the
summer of 1564, the king, with the aid of his allies, got together a
powerful armament, and sent it at once against Penon de Velez. This
fortress did not make the resistance to have been expected; and, after a
siege of scarcely a week's duration, the garrison submitted to the
superior valor--or numbers--of the Christians.[1287]

This conquest was followed up, the ensuing year, by an expedition under
Don Alvaro Bazan, the first marquis of Santa Cruz,--a name memorable in
the naval annals of Castile. The object of the expedition was to block
up the entrance to the river Tetuan, in the neighborhood of the late
conquest. The banks of this river had long been the refuge of a horde of
pestilent marauders, who, swarming out of its mouth, spread over the
Mediterranean, and fell heavily on the commerce of the Christians. Don
Alvaro accomplished his object in the face of a desperate enemy, and,
after some hard fighting, succeeded in si