CHAPTER LIV.
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 loopholes.
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
sank, 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 town was strewed 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 counterworks.
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 seas.
Many were also alarmed at the pestilence
which broke out in the neighbouring
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 in their
defence a little longer, 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 part 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.
