y presents of twelve horses, with stately tents, fine
linen, two beds with coverings of gold brocade, and many other articles
of great value.

Having refreshed himself, as it were, with the description of this
progress of Queen Isabella to the camp and the glorious pomp of the
Catholic sovereigns, the worthy Antonio Agapida returns with renewed
relish to his pious work of discomfiting the Moors.

The description of this royal pageant and the particulars concerning the
English earl, thus given from the manuscript of Fray Antonio Agapida,
agree precisely with the chronicle of Andres Bernaldez, the curate of
Los Palacios. The English earl makes no further figure in this war. It
appears from various histories that he returned in the course of the
year to England. In the following year his passion for fighting took
him to the Continent, at the head of four hundred adventurers, in aid of
Francis, duke of Brittany, against Louis XI. of France. He was killed
in the same year (1488) in the battle of St. Alban's between the Bretons
and the French.

CHAPTER XLIII.

HOW KING FERDINAND ATTACKED MOCLIN, AND OF THE STRANGE EVENTS THAT
ATTENDED ITS CAPTURE.

"The Catholic sovereigns," says Fray Antonio Agapida, "had by this time
closely clipped the right wing of the Moorish vulture." In other words,
most of the strong fortresses along the western frontier of Granada had
fallen beneath the Christian artillery. The army now lay encamped before
the town of Moclin, on the frontier of Jaen, one of the most stubborn
fortresses of the border. It stood on a high rocky hill, the base of
which was nearly girdled by a river: a thick forest protected the
back part of the town toward the mountain. Thus strongly situated, it
domineered, with its frowning battlements and massive towers, all the
mountain-passes into that part of the country, and was called "the
shield of Granada." It had a double arrear of blood to settle with the
Christians: two hundred years before, a master of Santiago and all his
cavaliers had been lanced by the Moors before its gates. It had recently
made terrible slaughter among the troops of the good count de Cabra in
his precipitate attempt to entrap the old Moorish monarch. The pride of
Ferdinand had been piqued by being obliged on that occasion to recede
from his plan and abandon his concerted attack on the place; he was now
prepared to take a full revenge.

El Zagal, the old warrior-king of Granada, anticipatin