how, and
scaled the walls of the castle in the night. There have been dreadful
fighting and carnage in its towers and courts; and when I spurred
my steed from the gate of Alhama the castle was in possession of the
unbelievers."

Muley Abul Hassan felt for a moment as if swift retribution had come
upon him for the woes he had inflicted upon Zahara. Still, he flattered
himself that this had only been some transient inroad of a party of
marauders intent upon plunder, and that a little succor thrown into the
town would be sufficient to expel them from the castle and drive them
from the land. He ordered out, therefore, a thousand of his chosen
cavalry, and sent them in all speed to the assistance of Alhama. They
arrived before its walls the morning after its capture: the Christian
standards floated upon its towers, and a body of cavalry poured forth
from its gates and came wheeling down into the plain to receive them.

The Moorish horsemen turned the reins of their steeds and galloped back
for Granada. They entered its gates in tumultuous confusion, spreading
terror and lamentation by their tidings. "Alhama is fallen! Alhama is
fallen!" exclaimed they; "the Christians garrison its walls; the key of
Granada is in the hands of the enemy!"

When the people heard these words they remembered the denunciation of
the santon. His prediction seemed still to resound in every ear, and
its fulfilment to be at hand. Nothing was heard throughout the city but
sighs and wailings. "Woe is me, Alhama!" was in every mouth; and this
ejaculation of deep sorrow and doleful foreboding came to be the burden
of a plaintive ballad which remains until the present day.*

* The mournful little Spanish romance of "Ay de mi Alhama!" is
supposed to be of Moorish origin, and to embody the grief of the people
of Granada on this occasion.

Many aged men, who had taken refuge in Granada from other Moorish
dominions which had fallen into the power of the Christians, now groaned
in despair at the thoughts that war was to follow them into this last
retreat, to lay waste this pleasant land, and to bring trouble and
sorrow upon their declining years. The women were more loud and vehement
in their grief, for they beheld the evils impending over their children,
and what can restrain the agony of a mother's heart? Many of them made
their way through the halls of the Alhambra into the presence of the
king, weeping, and wailing, and tearing their hair. "A