ed, the outposts
broke up their stations and withdrew, and the whole shadow of an
encampment was fast vanishing from their eyes.

The Moors saw too late the subtle manoeuvre of King Ferdinand. Cid Hiaya
again sallied forth with a large force of horse and foot, and pressed
furiously upon the Christians. The latter; however, experienced in
Moorish attack, retired in close order, sometimes turning upon the enemy
and driving them to their barricadoes, and then pursuing their retreat.
In this way the army was extricated without much further loss from the
perilous labyrinths of the gardens.

The camp was now out of danger, but it was also too distant from the
city to do mischief, while the Moors could sally forth and return
without hindrance. The king called a council of war to consider in what
manner to proceed. The marques of Cadiz was for abandoning the siege
for the present, the place being too strong, too well garrisoned and
provided, and too extensive for their limited forces either to carry it
by assault or invest and reduce it by famine, while in lingering before
it the army would be exposed to the usual maladies and sufferings of
besieging armies, and when the rainy season came on would be shut up
by the swelling of the rivers. He recommended, instead, that the king
should throw garrisons of horse and foot into all the towns captured in
the neighborhood, and leave them to keep up a predatory war upon Baza,
while he should overrun and ravage all the country, so that in the
following year Almeria and Guadix, having all their subject towns and
territories taken from them, might be starved into submission.

Don Gutierre de Cardenas, senior commander of Leon, on the other hand,
maintained that to abandon the siege would be construed by the enemy
into a sign of weakness and irresolution. It would give new spirits to
the partisans of El Zagal, and would gain to his standard many of
the wavering subjects of Boabdil, if it did not encourage the fickle
populace of Granada to open rebellion. He advised, therefore, that the
siege should be prosecuted with vigor.

The pride of Ferdinand pleaded in favor of the last opinion, for it
would be doubly humiliating again to return from a campaign in this part
of the Moorish kingdom without effecting a blow. But when he reflected
on all that his army had suffered, and on all that it must suffer
should the siege continue--especially from the difficulty of obtaining
a regular supply of