was at length enabled to extricate his troops from
the defile.

In the mean time, Don Alonso de Aguilar and his companions, in their
eager advance, had likewise got entangled in deep glens and the dry
beds of torrents, where they had been severely galled by the insulting
attacks of a handful of Moorish peasants posted on the impending
precipices. The proud spirit of De Aguilar was incensed at having the
game of war thus turned upon him, and his gallant forces domineered over
by mountain-boors whom he had thought to drive, like their own cattle,
to Antiquera. Hearing, however, that his friend the marques of Cadiz and
the master of Santiago were engaged with the enemy, he disregarded his
own danger, and, calling together his troops, returned to assist
them, or rather to partake their perils. Being once more together, the
cavaliers held a hasty council amidst the hurling of stones and the
whistling of arrows, and their resolves were quickened by the sight from
time to time of some gallant companion-in-arms laid low. They determined
that there was no spoil in this part of the country to repay for the
extraordinary peril, and that it was better to abandon the herds they
had already taken, which only embarrassed their march, and to retreat
with all speed to less dangerous ground.

The adalides, or guides, were ordered to lead the way out of this place
of carnage. These, thinking to conduct them by the most secure route,
led them by a steep and rocky pass, difficult for the foot-soldiers, but
almost impracticable to the cavalry. It was overhung with precipices,
from whence showers of stones and arrows were poured upon them,
accompanied by savage yells which appalled the stoutest heart. In some
places they could pass but one at a time, and were often transpierced,
horse and rider, by the Moorish darts, impeding the progress of their
comrades by their dying struggles. The surrounding precipices were lit
up by a thousand alarm-fires: every crag and cliff had its flame, by
the light of which they beheld their foes bounding from rock to rock and
looking more like fiends than mortal men.

Either through terror and confusion or through real ignorance of the
country their guides, instead of conducting them out of the mountains,
led them deeper into their fatal recesses. The morning dawned upon them
in a narrow rambla, its bottom formed of broken rocks, where once had
raved along the mountain-torrent, while above there beetled great