mpanions where was the band of
brothers which had rallied round him as he went forth to the field, and
when told that one by one they had been slaughtered at his side, they
hushed their voices or spake to each other only in whispers as he
passed, gazing at him in silent sympathy. No one attempted to console
him in so great an affliction, nor did the good marques speak ever
a word, but, shutting himself up, brooded in lonely anguish over his
misfortune. It was only the arrival of Don Alonso de Aguilar that gave
him a gleam of consolation, rejoicing to find that amidst the shafts of
death which had fallen so thickly among his family his chosen friend and
brother-in-arms had escaped uninjured.

For several days every eye was turned in fearful suspense toward the
Moorish border, anxiously looking in every fugitive from the mountains
for the lineaments of some friend or relative whose fate was yet a
mystery. At length every hope and doubt subsided into certainty; the
whole extent of this great calamity was known, spreading grief and
consternation throughout the land and laying desolate the pride and
hopes of palaces. It was a sorrow that visited the marble hall and
silken pillow. Stately dames mourned over the loss of their sons, the
joy and glory of their age, and many a fair cheek was blanched with woe
which had lately mantled with secret admiration. "All Andalusia," says a
historian of the time, "was overwhelmed by a great affliction; there was
no drying of the eyes which wept in her."*

* Cura de los Palacios.

Fear and trembling reigned for a time along the frontier. Their spear
seemed broken, their buckler cleft in twain: every border town dreaded
an attack, and the mother caught her infant to her bosom when the
watch-dog howled in the night, fancying it the war-cry of the Moor. All
for a time seemed lost, and despondency even found its way to the royal
breasts of Ferdinand and Isabella amidst the splendors of their court.

Great, on the other hand, was the joy of the Moors when they saw whole
legions of Christian warriors brought captive into their towns by rude
mountain-peasantry. They thought it the work of Allah in favor of the
faithful. But when they recognized among the captives thus dejected and
broken down some of the proudest of Christian chivalry; when they saw
several of the banners and devices of the noblest houses of Spain, which
they had been accustomed to behold in the foremost of the battle,