nforced Isabella advised that new
offers of an indulgent kind should be made to the inhabitants, for
she was anxious to prevent the miseries of a protracted siege or the
effusion of blood that must attend a general attack. A fresh summons
was therefore sent for the city to surrender, with a promise of life,
liberty, and property in case of immediate compliance, but denouncing
all the horrors of war if the defence were obstinately continued.

Hamet again rejected the offer with scorn. His main fortifications
as yet were but little impaired, and were capable of holding out much
longer; he trusted to the thousand evils and accidents that beset a
besieging army and to the inclemencies of the approaching season; and it
is said that he, as well as his followers, had an infatuated belief in
the predictions of the dervise.

The worthy Fray Antonio Agapida does not scruple to affirm that the
pretended prophet of the city was an arch nigromancer, or Moorish
magician, "of which there be countless many," says he, "in the filthy
sect of Mahomet," and that he was leagued with the prince of the powers
of the air to endeavor to work the confusion and defeat of the Christian
army. The worthy father asserts also that Hamet employed him in a high
tower of the Gibralfaro, which commanded a wide view over sea and land,
where he wrought spells and incantations with astrolabes and other
diabolical instruments to defeat the Christian ships and forces whenever
they were engaged with the Moors.

To the potent spells of this sorcerer he ascribes the perils and losses
sustained by a party of cavaliers of the royal household in a desperate
combat to gain two towers of the suburb near the gate of the city called
la Puerto de Granada. The Christians, led on by Ruy Lopez de Toledo,
the valiant treasurer of the queen, took and lost and retook the towers,
which were finally set on fire by the Moors and abandoned to the flames
by both parties. To the same malignant influence he attributes the
damage done to the Christian fleet, which was so vigorously assailed
by the albatozas, or floating batteries, of the Moors that one ship,
belonging to the duke of Medina Sidonia, was sunk and the rest were
obliged to retire.

"Hamet el Zegri," says Fray Antonio Agapida, "stood on the top of
the high tower of Gibralfaro and beheld this injury wrought upon the
Christian force, and his proud heart was puffed up. And the Moorish
nigromancer stood beside him. And he