of pageantry, and the bursts of festive music made more striking
the gloom and silence that reigned over the Moorish castle.

The marques of Cadiz while it was yet light conducted his royal visitors
to every point that commanded a view of the warlike scene below. He
caused the heavy lombards also to be discharged, that the queen and
ladies of the court might witness the effect of those tremendous
engines. The fair dames were filled with awe and admiration as the
mountain shook beneath their feet with the thunder of the artillery and
they beheld great fragments of the Moorish walls tumbling down the rocks
and precipices.

While the good marques was displaying these things to his royal guests
he lifted up his eyes, and to his astonishment beheld his own banner
hanging out from the nearest tower of Gibralfaro. The blood mantled
in his cheek, for it was a banner which he had lost at the time of the
memorable massacre of the heights of Malaga.* To make this taunt
more evident, several of the Gomeres displayed themselves upon the
battlements arrayed in the helmets and cuirasses of some of the
cavaliers slain or captured on that occasion. The marques of Cadiz
restrained his indignation and held his peace, but several of, his
cavaliers vowed loudly to revenge this cruel bravado on the ferocious
garrison of Gibralfaro.

* Diego de Valera, Cronica, MS.

CHAPTER LVI.

ATTACK OF THE MARQUES OF CADIZ UPON GIBRALFARO.

The marques of Cadiz was not a cavalier that readily forgave an injury
or an insult. On the morning after the royal banquet his batteries
opened a tremendous fire upon Gibralfaro. All day the encampment was
wrapped in wreaths of smoke, nor did the assault cease with the day, but
throughout the night there was an incessant flashing and thundering of
the lombards, and the following morning the assault rather increased
than slackened in fury. The Moorish bulwarks were no proof against those
formidable engines. In a few days the lofty tower on which the taunting
banner had been displayed was shattered, a smaller tower in its vicinity
reduced to ruins, and a great breach made in the intervening walls.

Several of the hot-spirited cavaliers were eager for storming the breach
sword in hand; others, more cool and wary, pointed out the rashness of
such an attempt, for the Moors had worked indefatigably in the night;
they had digged a deep ditch within the breach, and had fortified it
with palisadoes and a