arid
cliffs, over the brows of which they beheld the turbaned heads of
their fierce and exulting foes. What a different appearance did the
unfortunate cavaliers present from that of the gallant band that marched
so vauntingly out of Antiquera! Covered with dust and blood and wounds,
and haggard with fatigue and horror, they looked like victims rather
than like warriors. Many of their banners were lost, and not a trumpet
was heard to rally up their sinking spirits. The men turned with
imploring eyes to their commanders, while the hearts of the cavaliers
were ready to burst with rage and grief at the merciless havoc made
among their faithful followers.

All day they made ineffectual attempts to extricate themselves from the
mountains. Columns of smoke rose from the heights where in the preceding
night had blazed the alarm-fire. The mountaineers assembled from every
direction: they swarmed at every pass, getting in the advance of
the Christians, and garrisoning the cliffs like so many towers and
battlements.

Night closed again upon the Christians when they were shut up in a
narrow valley traversed by a deep stream and surrounded by precipices
which seemed to reach the skies, and on which blazed and flared the
alarm-fires. Suddenly a new cry was heard resounding along the valley.
"El Zagal! El Zagal!" echoed from cliff to cliff.

"What cry is that?" said the master of Santiago.

"It is the war-cry of El Zagal, the Moorish general," said an old
Castilian soldier: "he must be coming in person, with the troops of
Malaga."

The worthy master turned to his knights: "Let us die," said he, "making
a road with our hearts, since we cannot with our swords. Let us scale
the mountain and sell our lives dearly, instead of staying here to be
tamely butchered."

So saying, he turned his steed against the mountain and spurred him up
its flinty side. Horse and foot followed his example, eager, if they
could not escape, to have at least a dying blow at the enemy. As they
struggled up the height a tremendous storm of darts and stones was
showered upon them by the Moors. Sometimes a fragment of rock came
bounding and thundering down, ploughing its way through the centre
of their host. The foot-soldiers, faint with weariness and hunger or
crippled by wounds, held by the tails and manes of the horses to aid
them in their ascent, while the horses, losing their foothold among
the loose stones or receiving some sudden wound, tumbled down t