he
would have penetrated into the kingdom of Granada with the handful of
cavaliers who accompanied him, but they represented the rashness of such
a journey through the mountainous defiles of a hostile country thickly
beset with towns and castles. With some difficulty, therefore, he was
dissuaded from his inclination, and prevailed upon to await tidings from
the army in the frontier city of Antiquera.

CHAPTER VIII.

SEQUEL OF THE EVENTS AT ALHAMA.

While all Andalusia was thus in arms and pouring its chivalry through
the mountain-passes of the Moorish frontiers, the garrison of Alhama was
reduced to great extremity and in danger of sinking under its sufferings
before the promised succor could arrive. The intolerable thirst that
prevailed in consequence of the scarcity of water, the incessant watch
that had to be maintained over the vast force of enemies without and
the great number of prisoners within, and the wounds which almost every
soldier had received in the incessant skirmishes and assaults, had worn
grievously both flesh and spirit. The noble Ponce de Leon, marques
of Cadiz, still animated the soldiery, however, by word and example,
sharing every hardship and being foremost in every danger, exemplifying
that a good commander is the vital spirit of an army.

When Muley Abul Hassan heard of the vast force that was approaching
under the command of the duke of Medina Sidonia, and that Ferdinand was
coming in person with additional troops, he perceived that no time was
to be lost: Alhama must be carried by one powerful attack or abandoned
entirely to the Christians.

A number of Moorish cavaliers, some of the bravest youth of Granada,
knowing the wishes of the king, proposed to undertake a desperate
enterprise which, if successful, must put Alhama in his power. Early one
morning, when it was scarcely the gray of the dawn, about the time
of changing the watch, these cavaliers approached the town at a place
considered inaccessible from the steepness of the rocks on which the
wall was founded, which, it was supposed, elevated the battlements
beyond the reach of the longest scaling-ladder. The Moorish knights,
aided by a number of the strongest and most active escaladors, mounted
these rocks and applied the ladders without being discovered, for to
divert attention from them Muley Abul Hassan made a false attack upon
the town in another quarter.

The scaling party mounted with difficulty and in small numbers;