Atar wheeled and fled, and was hotly pursued. When the Christian
cavaliers had been drawn a considerable distance from their
encampment, they heard a vast shout behind them, and, looking round,
beheld their encampment assailed by the Moorish force which had been
placed in ambush, and which had ascended a different side of the
hill. The cavaliers desisted from the pursuit, and hastened to prevent
the plunder of their tents. Ali Atar, in his turn, wheeled and pursued
them, and they were attacked in front and rear on the summit of the
hill. The contest lasted for an hour; the height of Albohacen was red
with blood; many brave cavaliers fell, expiring among heaps of the
enemy. The fierce Ali Atar fought with the fury of a demon until the
arrival of more Christian forces compelled him to retreat into the city.
The severest loss to the Christians in this skirmish was that of
Roderigo Tellez Giron, grand master of Calatrava, whose burnished
armor, emblazoned with the red cross of his order, made him a mark
for the missiles of the enemy. As he was raising his arm to make a
blow an arrow pierced him just beneath the shoulder, at the open
part of the[1]corselet. The lance and bridle fell from his hands, he
faltered in his saddle, and would have fallen to the ground, but was
caught by Pedro Gasca, a cavalier of Avila, who conveyed him to his
tent, where he died. The king and queen and the whole kingdom
mourned his death, for he was in the freshness of his youth, being
but twenty-four years of age, and had proved himself a gallant and
high-minded cavalier. A melancholy group collected about his[2]corpse
on the bloody height of Albohacen: the knights of Calatrava mourned
him as a commander; the cavaliers who were encamped on the height
lamented him as their companion-in-arms in a service of peril; while
the count de Urena grieved over him with the tender affection of a
brother.