mountain race, who, accustomed to eternal winter, made a strange
contrast, in their rugged appearance and shaggy clothing, to the
glittering and civilised soldiery of Granada.

Moorish towns, which had submitted to Ferdinand, broke from their
allegiance, and sent their ardent youth and experienced veterans to the
standard of the Keys and Crescent. To add to the sudden panic of the
Spaniards, it went forth that a formidable magician, who seemed inspired
rather with the fury of a demon than the valour of a man, had made an
abrupt appearance in the ranks of the Moslems. Wherever the Moors shrank
back from wall or tower, down which poured the boiling pitch, or rolled
the deadly artillery of the besieged, this sorcerer--rushing into the
midst of the flagging force, and waving, with wild gestures, a white
banner, supposed by both Moor and Christian to be the work of magic and
preternatural spells--dared every danger, and escaped every weapon: with
voice, with prayer, with example, he fired the Moors to an enthusiasm
that revived the first days of Mohammedan conquest; and tower after
tower, along the mighty range of the mountain chain of fortresses, was
polluted by the wave and glitter of the ever-victorious banner. The
veteran, Mendo de Quexada, who, with a garrison of two hundred and fifty
men, held the castle of Almamen, was, however, undaunted by the
unprecedented successes of Boabdil. Aware of the approaching storm, he
spent the days of peace yet accorded to him in making every preparation
for the siege that he foresaw; messengers were despatched to Ferdinand;
new out-works were added to the castle; ample store of provisions laid
in; and no precaution omitted that could still preserve to the Spaniards
a fortress that, from its vicinity to Granada, its command of the Vega
and the valleys of the Alpuxarras, was the bitterest thorn in the side of
the Moorish power.