When Muley Abul Hassan heard of the vast force that was approaching
under the command of the duke of Medina Sidonia, and that Ferdinand
was coming in person with additional troops, he perceived that no
time was to be lost: Alhama must be carried by one powerful attack
or abandoned entirely to the Christians.

A number of Moorish cavaliers, some of the bravest youth of Granada,
knowing the wishes of the king, proposed to undertake a desperate
enterprise which, if successful, must put Alhama in his power. Early
one morning, when it was scarcely the gray of the dawn, about the
time of changing the watch, these cavaliers approached the town at
a place considered inaccessible from the steepness of the rocks on
which the wall was founded, which, it was supposed, elevated the
battlements beyond the reach of the longest scaling-ladder. The
Moorish knights, aided by a number of the strongest and most active
escaladors, mounted these rocks and applied the ladders without
being discovered, for to divert attention from them Muley Abul
Hassan made a false attack upon the town in another quarter.

The scaling party mounted with difficulty and in small numbers; the
sentinel was killed at his post, and seventy of the Moors made their
way into the streets before an alarm was given. The guards rushed
to the walls to stop the hostile throng that was still pouring in. A
sharp conflict, hand to hand and man to man, took place on the
battlements, and many on both sides fell. The Moors, whether
wounded or slain, were thrown headlong without the walls, the
scaling-ladders were overturned, and those who were mounting were
dashed upon the rocks, and from thence tumbled upon the plain. Thus
in a little while the ramparts were cleared by Christian prowess,