ier. Lord of Zagra and
in the receipt of rich revenues, he expended them all in paying scouts
and spies and maintaining a small but chosen force with which to foray
into the Christian territories; and so straitened was he at times by
these warlike expenses that when his daughter married Boabdil her bridal
dress and jewels had to be borrowed. He was now in the ninetieth year
of his age, yet indomitable in spirit, fiery in his passions, sinewy and
powerful in frame, deeply versed in warlike stratagem, and accounted the
best lance in all Mauritania. He had three thousand horsemen under his
command, veteran troops with whom he had often scoured the borders, and
he daily expected the old Moorish king with reinforcements.

Old Ali Atar had watched from his fortress every movement of the
Christian army, and had exulted in all the errors of its commanders:
when he beheld the flower of Spanish chivalry glittering about the
height of Albohacen, his eye flashed with exultation. "By the aid of
Allah," said he, "I will give those pranking cavaliers a rouse."

Ali Atar privately and by night sent forth a large body of his chosen
troops to lie in ambush near one of the skirts of Albohacen. On the
fourth day of the siege he sallied across the bridge and made a feint
attack upon the height. The cavaliers rushed impetuously forth to meet
him, leaving their encampment almost unprotected. Ali Atar wheeled and
fled, and was hotly pursued. When the Christian cavaliers had been drawn
a considerable distance from their encampment, they heard a vast shout
behind them, and, looking round, beheld their encampment assailed by the
Moorish force which had been placed in ambush, and which had ascended a
different side of the hill. The cavaliers desisted from the pursuit, and
hastened to prevent the plunder of their tents. Ali Atar, in his turn,
wheeled and pursued them, and they were attacked in front and rear on
the summit of the hill. The contest lasted for an hour; the height of
Albohacen was red with blood; many brave cavaliers fell, expiring among
heaps of the enemy. The fierce Ali Atar fought with the fury of a demon
until the arrival of more Christian forces compelled him to retreat into
the city. The severest loss to the Christians in this skirmish was that
of Roderigo Tellez Giron, grand master of Calatrava, whose burnished
armor, emblazoned with the red cross of his order, made him a mark for
the missiles of the enemy. As he was raising his