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Ferdinand, who had hitherto brought into action only the lighter pieces of ordnance, from a willingness to spare the noble edifices of the city, now pointed his heaviest guns against its walls. Before opening his fire, however, he again summoned the place, offering the usual liberal terms in case of immediate, compliance, and engaging otherwise, "with the blessing of God, to make them all slaves"! But the heart of the alcayde was hardened like that of Pharaoh, says the Andalusian chronicler, and the people were swelled with vain hopes, so that their ears were closed against the proposal; orders were even issued to punish with death any attempt at a parley. On the contrary, they made answer by a more lively cannonade than before, along the whole line of ramparts and fortresses which overhung the city. Sallies were also made at almost every hour of the day and night on every assailable point of the Christian lines, so that the camp was kept in perpetual alarm. In one of the nocturnal sallies, a body of two thousand men from the castle of Gebalfaro succeeded in surprising the quarters of the marquis of Cadiz, who, with his followers, was exhausted by fatigue and watching, during the two preceding nights. The Christians, bewildered with the sudden tumult which broke their slumber, were thrown into the greatest confusion; and the marquis, who rushed half armed from his tent, found no little difficulty in bringing them to order, and beating off the assailants, after receiving a wound in the arm from an arrow; while he had a still narrower escape from the ball of an arquebus, that penetrated his buckler and hit him below the cuirass, but fortunately so much spent as to do him no injury.

The Moors were not unmindful of the importance of Malaga, or the gallantry with which it was defended. They made several attempts to relieve it, whose failure was less owing to the Christians than to treachery and their own miserable feuds. A body of cavalry, which El Zagal despatched from Guadix to throw succors into the beleaguered city, was encountered and cut to pieces by a superior force of the young king Abdallah, who consummated his baseness by sending an embassy to the Christian camp, charged with a present of Arabian horses sumptuously caparisoned to Ferdinand, and of costly silks and Oriental perfumes to the queen; at the same time complimenting them on their successes, and soliciting the continuance of their friendly dispositions towards himself. Ferdinand and Isabella requited this act of humiliation by securing to Abdallah's subjects the right of cultivating their fields in quiet, and of trafficking with the Spaniards in every commodity, save military stores. At this paltry price did the dastard prince consent to stay his arm, at the only moment when it could be used effectually for his country.

More serious consequences were like to have resulted from an attempt made by another party of Moors from Guadix to penetrate the Christian lines. Part of them succeeded, and threw themselves into the besieged city. The remainder were cut in pieces. There was one, however, who, making no show of resistance, was made prisoner without harm to his person. Being brought before the marquis of Cadiz, he informed that nobleman, that he could make some important disclosures to the sovereigns. He was accordingly conducted to the royal tent; but, as Ferdinand was taking his siesta, in the sultry hour of the day, the queen, moved by divine inspiration, according to the Castilian historian, deferred the audience till her husband should awake, and commanded the prisoner to be detained in the adjoining tent. This was occupied by Do?a Beatrix de Bobadilla, marchioness of Moya, Isabella's early friend, who happened to be at that time engaged in discourse with a Portuguese nobleman, Don Alvaro, son of the duke of Braganza.

This daring attempt on the lives of the king and queen spread general consternation throughout the army. Precautions were taken for the future, by ordinances prohibiting the introduction of any unknown person armed, or any Moor whatever, into the royal quarters; and the bodyguard was augmented by the addition of two hundred hidalgos of Castile and Aragon, who, with their retainers, were to keep constant watch over the persons of the sovereigns.

Meanwhile, the city of Malaga, whose natural population was greatly swelled by the influx of its foreign auxiliaries, began to be straitened for supplies, while its distress was aggravated by the spectacle of abundance which reigned throughout the Spanish camp. Still, however, the people, overawed by the soldiery, did not break out into murmurs, nor did they relax in any degree the pertinacity of their resistance. Their drooping spirits were cheered by the predictions of a fanatic, who promised that they should eat the grain which they saw in the Christian camp; a prediction, which came to be verified, like most others that are verified at all, in a very different sense from that intended or understood.

The incessant cannonade kept up by the besieging army, in the mean time, so far exhausted their ammunition, that they were constrained to seek supplies from the most distant parts of the kingdom, and from foreign countries. The arrival of two Flemish transports at this juncture, from the emperor of Germany, whose interest had been roused in the crusade, afforded a seasonable reinforcement of military stores and munitions.

The obstinate defence of Malaga had given the siege such celebrity, that volunteers, eager to share in it, flocked from all parts of the Peninsula to the royal standard. Among others, the duke of Medina Sidonia, who had furnished his quota of troops at the opening of the campaign, now arrived in person with a reinforcement, together with a hundred galleys freighted with supplies, and a loan of twenty thousand doblas of gold to the sovereigns for the expenses of the war. Such was the deep interest in it excited throughout the nation, and the alacrity which every order of men exhibited in supporting its enormous burdens.

The Castilian army, swelled by these daily augmentations, varied in its amount, according to different estimates, from sixty to ninety thousand men. Throughout this immense host, the most perfect discipline was maintained. Gaming was restrained by ordinances interdicting the use of dice and cards, of which the lower orders were passionately fond. Blasphemy was severely punished. Prostitutes, the common pest of a camp, were excluded; and so entire was the subordination, that not a knife was drawn, and scarcely a brawl occurred, says the historian, among the motley multitude. Besides the higher ecclesiastics who attended the court, the camp was well supplied with holy men, priests, friars, and the chaplains of the great nobility, who performed the exercises of religion in their respective quarters with all the pomp and splendor of the Roman Catholic worship; exalting the imaginations of the soldiers into the high devotional feeling, which became those who were fighting the battles of the Cross.

Hitherto, Ferdinand, relying on the blockade, and yielding to the queen's desire to spare the lives of her soldiers, had formed no regular plan of assault upon the town. But, as the season rolled on without the least demonstration of submission on the part of the besieged, he resolved to storm the works, which, if attended by no other consequences, might at least serve to distress the enemy, and hasten the hour of surrender. Large wooden towers on rollers were accordingly constructed, and provided with an apparatus of drawbridges and ladders, which, when brought near to the ramparts, would open a descent into the city. Galleries were also wrought, some for the purpose of penetrating into the place, and others to sap the foundations of the walls. The whole of these operations was placed under the direction of Francisco Ramirez, the celebrated engineer of Madrid.

But the Moors anticipated the completion of these formidable preparations by a brisk, well-concerted attack on all points of the Spanish lines. They countermined the assailants, and, encountering them in the subterraneous passages, drove them back, and demolished the frame-work of the galleries. At the same time, a little squadron of armed vessels, which had been riding in safety under the guns of the city, pushed out and engaged the Spanish fleet. Thus the battle raged with fire and sword, above and under ground, along the ramparts, the ocean, and the land, at the same time. Even Pulgar cannot withhold his tribute of admiration to this unconquerable spirit in an enemy, wasted by all the extremities of famine and fatigue. "Who does not marvel," he says, "at the bold heart of these infidels in battle, their prompt obedience to their chiefs, their dexterity in the wiles of war, their patience under privation, and undaunted perseverance in their purposes?"

A circumstance occurred in a sortie from the city, indicating a trait of character worth recording. A noble Moor, named Abrahen Zenete, fell in with a number of Spanish children who had wandered from their quarters. Without injuring them, he touched them gently with the handle of his lance, saying, "Get ye gone, varlets, to your mothers." On being rebuked by his comrades, who inquired why he had let them escape so easily, he replied, "Because I saw no beard upon their chins." "An example of magnanimity," says the Curate of Los Palacios, "truly wonderful in a heathen, and which might have reflected credit on a Christian hidalgo."

But no virtue nor valor could avail the unfortunate Malagans against the overwhelming force of their enemies, who, driving them back from every point, compelled them, after a desperate struggle of six hours, to shelter themselves within the defences of the town. The Christians followed up their success. A mine was sprung near a tower, connected by a bridge of four arches with the main works of the place. The Moors, scattered and intimidated by the explosion, retreated across the bridge, and the Spaniards, carrying the tower, whose guns completely enfiladed it, obtained possession of this important pass into the beleaguered city. For these and other signal services during the siege, Francisco Ramirez, the master of the ordnance, received the honors of knighthood from the hand of King Ferdinand.

The citizens of Malaga, dismayed at beholding the enemy established in their defences, and fainting under exhaustion from a siege which had already lasted more than three months, now began to murmur at the obstinacy of the garrison, and to demand a capitulation. Their magazines of grain were emptied, and for some weeks they had been compelled to devour the flesh of horses, dogs, cats, and even the boiled hides of these animals, or, in default of other nutriment, vine leaves dressed with oil, and leaves of the palm tree, pounded fine, and baked into a sort of cake. In consequence of this loathsome and unwholesome diet, diseases were engendered. Multitudes were seen dying about the streets. Many deserted to the Spanish camp, eager to barter their liberty for bread; and the city exhibited all the extremes of squalid and disgusting wretchedness, bred by pestilence and famine among an overcrowded population. The sufferings of the citizens softened the stern heart of the alcayde, Hamet Zeli, who at length yielded to their importunities, and, withdrawing his forces into the Gebalfaro, consented that the Malagans should make the best terms they could with their conqueror.

A deputation of the principal inhabitants, with an eminent merchant named Ali Dordux at their head, was then despatched to the Christian quarters, with the offer of the city to capitulate, on the same liberal conditions which had been uniformly granted by the Spaniards. The king refused to admit the embassy into his presence, and haughtily answered through the commander of Leon, "that these terms had been twice offered to the people of Malaga, and rejected; that it was too late for them to stipulate conditions, and nothing now remained but to abide by those which he, as their conqueror, should vouchsafe to them."

Ferdinand's answer spread general consternation throughout Malaga. The inhabitants saw too plainly that nothing was to be hoped from an appeal to sentiments of humanity. After a tumultuous debate, the deputies were despatched a second time to the Christian camp, charged with propositions in which concession was mingled with menace. They represented that the severe response of King Ferdinand to the citizens had rendered them desperate. That, however, they were willing to resign to him their fortifications, their city, in short, their property of every description, on his assurance of their personal security and freedom. If he refused this, they would take their Christian captives, amounting to five or six hundred, from the dungeons in which they lay, and hang them like dogs over the battlements; and then, placing their old men, women, and children in the fortress, they would set fire to the town, and cut a way for themselves through their enemies, or fall in the attempt. "So," they continued, "if you gain a victory, it shall be such a one as shall make the name of Malaga ring throughout the world, and to ages yet unborn!" Ferdinand, unmoved by these menaces, coolly replied, that he saw no occasion to change his former determination; but they might rest assured, if they harmed a single hair of a Christian, he would put every soul in the place, man, woman, and child, to the sword.

The anxious people, who thronged forth to meet the embassy on its return to the city, were overwhelmed with the deepest gloom at its ominous tidings. Their fate was now sealed. Every avenue to hope seemed closed by the stern response of the victor. Yet hope will still linger; and, although there were some frantic enough to urge the execution of their desperate menaces, the greater number of the inhabitants, and among them those most considerable for wealth and influence, preferred the chance of Ferdinand's clemency to certain, irretrievable ruin.

For the last time, therefore, the deputies issued from the gates of the city, charged with an epistle to the sovereigns from their unfortunate countrymen, in which, after deprecating their anger, and lamenting their own blind obstinacy, they reminded their highnesses of the liberal terms which their ancestors had granted to Cordova, Antequera, and other cities, after a defence as pertinacious as their own. They expatiated on the fame which the sovereigns had established by the generous policy of their past conquests, and, appealing to their magnanimity, concluded with submitting themselves, their families, and their fortunes to their disposal. Twenty of the principal citizens were then delivered up as hostages for the peaceable demeanor of the city until its occupation by the Spaniards. "Thus," says the Curate of Los Palacios, "did the Almighty harden the hearts of these heathen, like to those of the Egyptians, in order that they might receive the full wages of the manifold oppressions which they had wrought on his people, from the days of King Roderic to the present time."

The first act was to purify the town from the numerous dead bodies, and other offensive matter, which had accumulated during this long siege, and lay festering in the streets, poisoning the atmosphere. The principal mosque was next consecrated with due solemnity to the service of Santa Maria de la Encarnacion. Crosses and bells, the symbols of Christian worship, were distributed in profusion among the sacred edifices; where, says the Catholic chronicler last quoted, "the celestial music of their chimes, sounding at every hour of the day and night, caused perpetual torment to the ears of the infidel."

On the eighteenth day of August, being somewhat more than three months from the date of opening trenches, Ferdinand and Isabella made their entrance into the conquered city, attended by the court, the clergy, and the whole of their military array. The procession moved in solemn state up the principal streets, now deserted, and hushed in ominous silence, to the new cathedral of St. Mary, where mass was performed; and as the glorious anthem of the Te Deum rose for the first time within its ancient walls, the sovereigns, together with the whole army, prostrated themselves in grateful adoration of the Lord of hosts, who had thus reinstated them in the domains of their ancestors.

The most affecting incident was afforded by the multitude of Christian captives, who were rescued from the Moorish dungeons. They were brought before the sovereigns, with their limbs heavily manacled, their beards descending to their waists, and their sallow visages emaciated by captivity and famine. Every eye was suffused with tears at the spectacle. Many recognized their ancient friends, of whose fate they had long been ignorant. Some, had lingered in captivity ten or fifteen years; and among them were several belonging to the best families in Spain. On entering the presence, they would have testified their gratitude by throwing themselves at the feet of the sovereigns; but the latter, raising them up and mingling their tears with those of the liberated captives, caused their fetters to be removed, and, after administering to their necessities, dismissed them with liberal presents.

The doom of the vanquished was now to be pronounced. On entering the city, orders had been issued to the Spanish soldiery, prohibiting them under the severest penalties from molesting either the persons or property of the inhabitants. These latter were directed to remain in their respective mansions with a guard set over them, while the cravings of appetite were supplied by a liberal distribution of food. At length, the whole population of the city, comprehending every age and sex, was commanded to repair to the great courtyard of the alcazaba, which was overlooked on all sides by lofty ramparts garrisoned by the Spanish soldiery. To this place, the scene of many a Moorish triumph, where the spoil of the border foray had been often displayed, and which still might be emblazoned with the trophy of many a Christian banner, the people of Malaga now directed their steps. As the multitude swarmed through the streets, filled with boding apprehensions of their fate, they wrung their hands, and, raising their eyes to heaven, uttered the most piteous lamentations. "Oh, Malaga," they cried, "renowned and beautiful city, how are thy sons about to forsake thee! Could not thy soil, on which they first drew breath, be suffered to cover them in death? Where is now the strength of thy towers, where the beauty of thy edifices? The strength of thy walls, alas, could not avail thy children, for they had sorely displeased their Creator. What shall become of thy old men and thy matrons, or of thy young maidens delicately nurtured within thy halls, when they shall feel the iron yoke of bondage? Can thy barbarous conquerors without remorse thus tear asunder the dearest ties of life?" Such are the melancholy strains, in which the Castilian chronicler has given utterance to the sorrows of the captive city.

The dreadful doom of slavery was denounced on the assembled multitude. One-third was to be transported into Africa in exchange for an equal number of Christian captives detained there; and all, who had relatives or friends in this predicament, were required to furnish a specification of them. Another third was appropriated to reimburse the state for the expenses of the war. The remainder were to be distributed as presents at home and abroad. Thus, one hundred of the flower of the African warriors were sent to the pope, who incorporated them into his guard, and converted them all in the course of the year, says the Curate of Los Palacios, into very good Christians. Fifty of the most beautiful Moorish girls were presented by Isabella to the queen of Naples, thirty to the queen of Portugal, others to the ladies of her court; and the residue of both sexes were apportioned among the nobles, cavaliers, and inferior members of the army, according to their respective rank and services.

The fate of Malaga may be said to have decided that of Granada. The latter was now shut out from the most important ports along her coast; and she was environed on every point of her territory by her warlike foe, so that she could hardly hope more from subsequent efforts, however strenuous and united, than to postpone the inevitable hour of dissolution. The cruel treatment of Malaga was the prelude to the long series of persecutions, which awaited the wretched Moslems in the land of their ancestors; in that land, over which the "star of Islamism," to borrow their own metaphor, had shone in full brightness for nearly eight centuries, but where it was now fast descending amid clouds and tempests to the horizon.

The first care of the sovereigns was directed towards repeopling the depopulated city with their own subjects. Houses and lands were freely granted to such as would settle there. Numerous towns and villages with a wide circuit of territory were placed under its civil jurisdiction, and it was made the head of a diocese embracing most of the recent conquests in the south and west of Granada. These inducements, combined with the natural advantages of position and climate, soon caused the tide of Christian population to flow into the deserted city; but it was very long before it again reached the degree of commercial consequence to which it had been raised by the Moors.

After these salutary arrangements, the Spanish sovereigns led back their victorious legions in triumph to Cordova, whence dispersing to their various homes, they prepared, by a winter's repose, for new campaigns and more brilliant conquests.

FOOTNOTES

Vedmar, Antiguedad y Grandezas de la Ciudad de Velez, fol. 148.--Mariana, Hist. de Espa?a, tom. ii. lib. 27, cap. 10.--Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, part. iii. cap. 70.--Carbajal, Anales, MS., a?o 1487.-- Bleda, Cor?nica, lib. 5, cap. 14.

Cardonne, Hist. d'Afrique et d'Espagne, tom. iii. pp. 292-294.-- Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, ubi supra.--Vedmar, Antiguedad de Velez, fol. 151.

L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 175.--Vedmar, Antiguedad.--de Velez, fol. 150, 151.--Marmol, Rebelion de Moriscos, lib. 1, cap. 14.

In commemoration of this event, the city incorporated into its escutcheon the figure of a king on horseback, in the act of piercing a Moor with his javelin. Vedmar, Antiguedad de Velez, fol. 12.

Bernaldez, Reyes Cat?licos, MS., cap. 52.--Marmol, Rebelion de Moriscos, lib. 1, cap. 14.

Conde, Dominacion de los Arabes, tom. iii. p. 237.--Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 74.--El Nubiense, Descripcion de Espa?a, not., p. 144.

Bernaldez, Reyes Cat?licos, MS., cap. 82.--Vedmar, Antiguedad de Velez, fol. 154.--Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 74.

"Garcilaso de la Vega desde alli se ha intitulado, porque en la Vega hiciera campo con aquel pagano."

Oviedo, however, with good reason, distrusts the etymology and the story, as he traces both the cognomen and the peculiar device of the family to a much older date than the period assigned in the Chronicle. Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 3, dial. 43.

Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 75.--Salazar de Mendoza, Cr?n. del Gran Cardenal, lib. 1, cap. 64.

Bernaldez, Reyes Cat?licos, MS., cap. 83.--Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 76.--Carbajal, Anales, MS., a?o 1487.

Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, ubi supra.--Bernaldez, Reyes Cat?licos, MS., ubi supra.

Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., lib. 1, epist. 83--Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 76.--Bernaldez, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 83.--Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 36.

Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 76.

Salazar de Mendoza, Cr?n. del Gran Cardenal, lib. 1, cap. 64.-- Zurita, Anales, tom. iv. cap. 70.--Bernaldez, Reyes Cat?licos, MS., cap. 83.

Bleda, Cor?nica, lib. 5, cap. 15.--Conde, Dominacion, tom. iv. pp. 237, 238.--Bernaldez, Reyes Cat?licos, MS., cap. 83.--Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 79.

Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, ubi supra.

During the siege, ambassadors arrived from an African potentate, the king of Tremecen, bearing a magnificent present to the Castilian sovereigns, interceding for the Malagans, and at the same time asking protection for his subjects from the Spanish cruisers in the Mediterranean. The sovereigns graciously complied with the latter request, and complimented the African monarch with a plate of gold, on which the royal arms were curiously embossed, says Bernaldez, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 84.

This nobleman, Don Alvaro de Portugal, had fled his native country, and sought an asylum in Castile from the vindictive enmity of John II, who had been put to death by the duke of Braganza, his elder brother. He was kindly received by Isabella, to whom he was nearly related, and subsequently preferred to several important offices of state. His son, the count of Gelves, married a granddaughter of Christopher Columbus. Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS.

Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., bat. 1, quinc. 1, dial. 23.--Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., lib. 1, epist. 63.--Bernaldez, Reyes Cat?licos, MS., cap. 84.--Bleda, Cor?nica de los Moros, lib. 5, cap. 15.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 175, 176.

Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 87-89.--Bernaldez, Reyes Cat?licos, MS., cap. 84.

Bernaldez, Reyes Cat?licos, MS., cap. 87.--Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 71.

Conde, Dominacion de los Arabes, tom. iii. pp. 237, 238.--Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 80.--Caro de Torres, Ordenes Militares, fol. 82, 83.

Pulgar, Reyes Cat?licos, cap. 9l.--Bernaldez, Reyes Cat?licos, MS., cap. 84. The honest exclamation of the Curate brings to mind the similar encomium of the old Moorish ballad,

"Caballeros Granadinos, Aunque Moros, hijosdalgo."

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