9. CHAPTER IX.
Siege of Malaga.
The attack on Malaga, by sea and land, was kept
up for several days with tremendous violence, but
without producing any great impression, so strong
were the ancient bulwarks of the city. The count
de Cifuentes was the first to signalize himself by any
noted achievement. A main tower of the suburb had
been shattered by the ordnance, and the battlements
demolished, so as to yield no shelter to its defenders.
Seeing this, the count assembled a gallant band of
cavaliers of the royal household, and advanced to
take it by storm. They applied scaling-ladders, and
mounted, sword in hand. The Moors, having no
longer battlements to protect them, descended to a
lower floor, and made furious resistance from the
windows and loop-holes. They poured down boiling
pitch and rosin, and hurled stones and darts and
arrows on the assailants. Many of the christians
were slain, their ladders were destroyed by flaming
combustibles, and the count was obliged to retreat
from before the tower. On the following day he
renewed the attack with superior force, and, after a
severe combat, succeeded in planting his victorious
banner on the tower.
The Moors now assailed the tower in their turn.
They undermined the part towards the city, placed
props of wood under the foundation, and, setting
fire to them, drew off to a distance. In a little while
the props gave way, the foundation sunk, and the
tower was rent; part of its wall fell, with a tremendous
noise; many of the christians were thrown out
headlong, and the rest were laid open to the missiles
of the enemy.
By this time, however, a breach had been made in
the wall adjoining the tower, and troops poured in to
the assistance of their comrades. A continued battle
was kept up, for two days and a night, by reinforcements
from camp and city. The parties fought backwards
and forwards through the breach of the wall,
with alternate success; and the vicinity of the tower
was strewn with the dead and wounded. At length
the Moors gradually gave way, disputing every inch
of ground, until they were driven into the city; and
the christians remained masters of the greater part
of the suburb.
This partial success, though gained with great toil
and bloodshed, gave temporary animation to the
christians; they soon found, however, that the attack
on the main works of the city was a much more
arduous task. The garrison contained veterans who
had served in many of the towns captured by the
christians. They were no longer confounded and
dismayed by the battering ordnance and other strange
engines of foreign invention, and had become expert
in parrying their effects, in repairing breaches, and
erecting counter-works.
The christians, accustomed of late to speedy conquests
of Moorish fortresses, became impatient of
the slow progress of the siege. Many were apprehensive
of a scarcity of provisions, from the difficulty
of subsisting so numerous a host in the heart
of the enemy's country, where it was necessary to
transport supplies across rugged and hostile mountains,
or subjected to the uncertainties of the sea.
Many also were alarmed at a pestilence which broke
out in the neighboring villages; and some were so
overcome by these apprehensions, as to abandon the
camp and return to their homes.
Several of the loose and worthless hangers-on that
infest all great armies, hearing these murmurs, thought
that the siege would soon be raised, and deserted to
the enemy, hoping to make their fortunes. They
gave exaggerated accounts of the alarms and discontents
of the army, and represented the troops as
daily returning home in bands. Above all, they declared
that the gunpowder was nearly exhausted, so
that the artillery would soon be useless. They assured
the Moors, therefore, that if they persisted a
little longer in their defence, the king would be
obliged to draw off his forces and abandon the siege.
The reports of these renegadoes gave fresh courage
to the garrison; they made vigorous sallies upon
the camp, harassing it by night and day, and obliging
every part to be guarded with the most painful vigilance.
They fortified the weak parts of their walls
with ditches and palisadoes, and gave every manifestation
of a determined and unyielding spirit.
Ferdinand soon received intelligence of the reports
which had been carried to the Moors; he understood
that they had been informed, likewise, that
the queen was alarmed for the safety of the camp,
and had written repeatedly urging him to abandon
the siege. As the best means of disproving all these
falsehoods, and of destroying the vain hopes of the
enemy, Ferdinand wrote to the queen, entreating her
to come and take up her residence in the camp.
