24. CHAPTER XXIV.
How the Moors made various enterprises against the
Christians.
“While the pious king Ferdinand,” observes Fray
Antonio Agapida, “was humbling himself before the
cross, and devoutly praying for the destruction of his
enemies, that fierce pagan El Zagal, depending merely
on his arm of flesh and sword of steel, pursued his
diabolical outrages upon the christians.” No sooner
was the invading army disbanded, than El Zagal sallied
forth from his strong-hold, and carried fire and
sword into all those parts that had submitted to the
Spanish yoke. The castle of Nixar, being carelessly
guarded, was taken by surprise, and its garrison put
to the sword. The old warrior raged with sanguinary
fury about the whole frontier, attacking convoys,
slaying, wounding, and making prisoners, and coming
by surprise upon the christians wherever they were
off their guard.
The alcayde of the fortress of Cullar, confiding in
the strength of its walls and towers, and in its difficult
situation, being built on the summit of a lofty
hill, and surrounded by precipices, ventured to absent
himself from his post. The vigilant El Zagal
was suddenly before it, with a powerful force: he
stormed the town sword in hand, fought the christians
from street to street, and drove them, with great
slaughter, to the citadel. Here a veteran captain,
by the name of Juan de Avalos, a gray-headed warrior
scarred in many a battle, assumed the command
and made an obstinate defence. Neither the multitude
of the enemy, nor the vehemence of their
attacks, though led on by the terrible El Zagal himself,
had power to shake the fortitude of this doughty
old soldier.
The Moors undermined the outer walls and one
of the towers of the fortress, and made their way into
the exterior court. The alcayde manned the tops of
his towers, pouring down melted pitch, and showering
darts, arrows, stones, and all kinds of missiles, upon
the assailants. The Moors were driven out of the
court; but, being reinforced with fresh troops, returned
repeatedly to the assault. For five days the
combat was kept up: the christians were nearly exhausted,
but they were sustained by the cheerings of
their staunch old alcayde; and they feared death from
the cruel El Zagal, should they surrender. At length
the approach of a powerful force under Puerto Carrero
relieved them from this fearful peril. El Zagal
abandoned the assault, but set fire to the town in his
rage and disappointment, and retired to his strong-hold
of Guadix.
The example of El Zagal roused his adherents to
action. Two bold Moorish alcaydes, Ali Altar and
Yza Altar, commanding the fortresses of Alhenden
and Salobreña, laid waste the country of the subjects
of Boabdil, and the places which had recently submitted
to the christians: they swept off the cattle,
carried off captives, and harassed the whole of the
newly conquered frontier.
The Moors also of Almeria, and Tavernas, and
Purchena, made inroads into Murcia, and carried fire
and sword into its most fertile regions. On the opposite
frontier, also, among the wild valleys and rugged
recesses of the Sierra Bormeja, or Red Mountains,
many of the Moors who had lately submitted again
flew to arms. The marques of Cadiz suppressed by
timely vigilance the rebellion of the mountain town
of Gausin, situated on a high peak, almost among the
clouds; but others of the Moors fortified themselves
in rock-built towers and castles, inhabited soley by
warriors, from whence they carried on a continual
war of forage and depredation; sweeping suddenly
down into the valleys, and carrying off flocks and
herds and all kinds of booty to these eagle-nests, to
which it was perilous and fruitless to pursue them.
The worthy father Fray Antonio Agapida closes
his history of this checkered year, in quite a different
strain from those triumphant periods with which he
is accustomed to wind up the victorious campaigns
of the sovereigns. “Great and mighty,” says this
venerable chronicler, “were the floods and tempests
which prevailed throughout the kingdoms of Castile
and Arragon, about this time. It seemed as though
the windows of Heaven were again opened, and a
second deluge overwhelming the face of nature. The
clouds burst as it were in cataracts upon the earth;
torrents rushed down from the mountains, overflowing
the valleys; brooks were swelled into raging
rivers; houses were undermined; mills were swept
away by their own streams; the affrighted shepherds
saw their flocks drowned in the midst of the pasture,
and were fain to take refuge for their lives in towers
and high places. The Guadalquivir for a time became
a roaring and tumultuous sea, inundating the
immense plain of the Zablada, and filling the fair city
of Seville with affright.
“A vast black cloud moved over the land, accompanied
by a hurricane and a trembling of the earth.
Houses were unroofed, the walls and battlements of
fortresses shaken, and lofty towers rocked to their
foundations. Ships, riding at anchor, were either
stranded or swallowed up; others, under sail, were
tossed to and fro upon mountain waves, and cast
upon the land, where the whirlwind rent them in
pieces and scattered them in fragments in the air.
Doleful was the ruin and great the terror, where this
baleful cloud passed by; and it left a long track of
desolation over sea and land. Some of the fainthearted,”
adds Antonio Agapida, “looked upon this
torment of the elements as a prodigious event, out
of the course of nature. In the weakness of their
fears, they connected it with those troubles which
occurred in various places, considering it a portent
of some great calamity, about to be wrought by the
violence of the bloody-handed El Zagal and his fierce
adherents.”
