Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada

p the very sentinel had deserted his post, and sought shelter from a tempest which had raged for three nights in succession, for it appeared but little probable that an enemy would be abroad

scaling-ladders and mounted securely into both town and castle. The garrison was unsuspicious of danger until battle and massacre burst forth within its very walls. It seemed to the affrighted inhabitants as if the fiends of the air had come upon the wings of the wind and possessed themselves of tower and turret. The war-cry resounded on every side, shout answering shout, above, below, on the battlements of the castle, in t

oning them all to assemble, unarmed, in the public square. Here they were surrounded by soldiery and strictly guarded until daybreak. When the day dawned it was piteous to behold this once-prosperous community, who had laid down to rest in peaceful security, now crowded together without distinction of age or rank or sex, and almost without raiment, during the severity of a wintry storm. The fierce Mu

ians, the captives of Zahara arrived-a wretched train of men, women, and children, worn out with fatigue

eir infants to their breasts as they beheld the hapless females of Zahara with their children expiring in their arms. On every side the accents of pity for the sufferers were mingled w

tion approaches. The ruins of Zahara will fall upon our heads; my spirit tells me that the end of our empire is at hand." All shrank back aghast, and left the denouncer of woe standing alone in the centre of the hall. He was an ancient and hoary man in the rude attire of a dervise. Age had withered his form without quenching the fire of his spirit, which glared in baleful lustre from his eyes. He was (say the Arabian historians) on

ated his predictions as the ravings of a maniac. The santon rushed from the royal presence, and, descending into the city, hurried through its streets and squares with frantic gesticulations. His voice was heard in every part in awful denunciation: "The pe

hemselves in their dwellings as in a time of general mourning, while some gathered together in knots in the st

attempts to surprise Castellan and Elvira, though without success. He sent alfaquis also to the Barbary powers, informing them that the sword was drawn, and inv

and place his son Boabdil upon the throne. His first measure was to confine the prince and his mother in the Tower of Comares; then, calling to mind the prediction of the astrologers, that the youth would one

gether the shawls and scarfs of herself and her female attendants, lowered him down from a balcony of the Alhambra to the steep rocky hillside which sweeps down to th