"What cry is that?" said the master of Santiago.

"It is the war-cry of El Zagal, the Moorish general," said an old
Castilian soldier: "he must be coming in person, with the troops
of Malaga."

The worthy master turned to his knights: "Let us die," said he,
"making a road with our hearts, since we cannot with our swords.
Let us scale the mountain and sell our lives dearly, instead of
staying here to be tamely butchered."

So saying, he turned his steed against the mountain and spurred him
up its flinty side. Horse and foot followed his example, eager, if
they could not escape, to have at least a dying blow at the enemy.
As they struggled up the height a tremendous storm of darts and
stones was showered upon them by the Moors. Sometimes a fragment
of rock came bounding and thundering down, ploughing its way through
the centre of their host. The foot-soldiers, faint with weariness and
hunger or crippled by wounds, held by the tails and manes of the
horses to aid them in their ascent, while the horses, losing their
foothold among the loose stones or receiving some sudden wound,
tumbled down the steep declivity, steed, rider, and soldier rolling
from crag to crag until they were dashed to pieces in the valley.
In this desperate struggle the alferez or standard-bearer of the
master, with his standard, was lost, as were many of his relations
and his dearest friends. At length he succeeded in attaining the
crest of the mountain, but it was only to be plunged in new
difficulties. A wilderness of rocks and rugged dells lay before him
beset by cruel foes. Having neither banner nor trumpet by which
to rally his troops, they wandered apart, each intent upon saving