Part 41 (1/2)
Don Alonso de Aguilar was at Cordova when he received the commands of the king. ”What force is allotted us for this expedition?” said he.
On being told, he perceived that the number of troops was far from adequate. ”When a man is dead,” said he, ”we send four men into his house to bring forth the body. We are now sent to chastise these Moors, who are alive, vigorous, in open rebellion, and ensconced in their castles; yet they do not give us man to man.” These words of the brave Alonso de Aguilar were afterward frequently repeated, but, though he saw the desperate nature of the enterprise, he did not hesitate to undertake it.
Don Alonso was at that time in the fifty-first year of his age--a warrior in whom the fire of youth was yet unquenched, though tempered by experience. The greater part of his life had been spent in camp and field until danger was as his habitual element. His muscular frame had acquired the firmness of iron without the rigidity of age. His armor and weapons seemed to have become a part of his nature, and he sat like a man of steel on his powerful war-horse.
He took with him on this expedition his son, Don Pedro de Cordova, a youth of bold and generous spirit, in the freshness of his days, and armed and arrayed with the bravery of a young Spanish cavalier. When the populace of Cordova beheld the veteran father, the warrior of a thousand battles, leading forth his son to the field, they bethought themselves of the family appellation. ”Behold,” cried they, ”the eagle teaching his young to fly! Long live the valiant line of Aguilar!”*
* ”Aguilar,” the Spanish for eagle.
The prowess of Don Alonso and of his companions-in-arms was renowned throughout the Moorish towns. At their approach, therefore, numbers of the Moors submitted, and hastened to Ronda to embrace Christianity.
Among the mountaineers, however, were many of the Gandules, a tribe from Africa, too proud of spirit to bend their necks to the yoke. At their head was a Moor named El Feri of Ben Estepar, renowned for strength and courage. At his instigation his followers gathered together their families and most precious effects, placed them on mules, and, driving before them their flocks and herds, abandoned their valleys and retired up the craggy pa.s.ses of the Sierra (13) Bermeja. On the summit was a fertile plain surrounded by rocks and precipices, which formed a natural fortress. Here El Feri placed all the women and children and all the property. By his orders his followers piled great stones on the rocks and cliffs which commanded the defiles and the steep sides of the mountain, and prepared to defend every pa.s.s that led to his place of refuge.
The Christian commanders arrived, and pitched their camp before the town of Monarda, a strong place, curiously fortified, and situated at the foot of the highest part of the Sierra (14) Bermeja. Here they remained for several days, unable to compel a surrender. They were separated from the skirt of the mountain by a deep barranca, or ravine, at the bottom of which flowed a small stream. The Moors commanded by El Feri drew down from their mountain-height, and remained on the opposite side of the brook to defend a pa.s.s which led up to their stronghold.
One afternoon a number of Christian soldiers in mere bravado seized a banner, crossed the brook, and, scrambling up the opposite bank, attacked the Moors. They were followed by numbers of their companions, some in aid, some in emulation, but most in hope of booty. A sharp action ensued on the mountain-side. The Moors were greatly superior in number, and had the vantage-ground. When the counts of Urena and Cifuentes beheld the skirmish, they asked Don Alonso de Aguilar his opinion. ”My opinion,” said he, ”was given at Cordova, and remains the same: this is a desperate enterprise. However, the Moors are at hand, and if they suspect weakness in us it will increase their courage and our peril. Forward then to the attack, and I trust in G.o.d we shall gain a victory.” So saying, he led his troops into the battle.*
* Bleda, 1. 5, c. 26.
On the skirts of the mountain were several level places, like terraces; here the Christians pressed valiantly upon the Moors, and had the advantage; but the latter retreated to the steep and craggy heights, whence they hurled darts and rocks upon their a.s.sailants. They defended their pa.s.ses and defiles with valor, but were driven from height to height until they reached the plain on the summit of the mountain where their wives and children were sheltered. Here they would have made a stand, but Alonso de Aguilar, with his son Don Pedro, charged upon them at the head of three hundred men and put them to flight with great carnage. While they were pursuing the flying enemy the rest of the army, thinking the victory achieved, dispersed themselves over the little plain in search of plunder. They pursued the shrieking females, tearing off their necklaces, bracelets, and anklets of gold, and they found so much treasure of various kinds collected in this spot that they threw by their armor and weapons to load themselves with booty.
Evening was closing. The Christians, intent upon spoil, had ceased to pursue the Moors, and the latter were arrested in their flight by the cries of their wives and children. Their leader, El Feri, threw himself before them. ”Friends, soldiers,” cried he, ”whither do you fly? Whither can you seek refuge where the enemy cannot follow you? Your wives, your children, are behind you--turn and defend them; you have no chance for safety but from the weapons in your hands.”
The Moors turned at his words. They beheld the Christians scattered about the plain, many of them without armor, and all enc.u.mbered with spoil. ”Now is the time!” shouted El Feri: ”charge upon them while laden with your plunder. I will open a path for you.” He rushed to the attack, followed by his Moors, with shouts and cries that echoed through the mountains. The scattered Christians were seized with panic, and, throwing down their booty, began to fly in all directions. Don Alonso de Aguilar advanced his banner and endeavored to rally them. Finding his horse of no avail in these rocky heights, he dismounted, and caused his men to do the same: he had a small band of tried followers, with which he opposed a bold front to the Moors, calling on the scattered troops to rally in the rear.
Night had completely closed. It prevented the Moors from seeing the smallness of the force with which they were contending, and Don Alonso and his cavaliers dealt their blows so vigorously that, aided by the darkness, they seemed multiplied to ten times their number.
Unfortunately, a small cask of gunpowder blew up near to the scene of action. It shed a momentary but brilliant light over all the plain and on every rock and cliff. The Moors beheld, with surprise, that they were opposed by a mere handful of men, and that the greater part of the Christians were flying from the field. They put up loud shouts of triumph. While some continued the conflict with redoubled ardor, others pursued the fugitives, hurling after them stones and darts and discharging showers of arrows. Many of the Christians in their terror and their ignorance of the mountains, rushed headlong from the brinks of precipices and were dashed in pieces.
Don Alonso still maintained his ground, but, while some of the Moors a.s.sailed him in front, others galled him with all kinds of missiles from the impending cliffs. Some of the cavaliers, seeing the hopeless nature of the conflict, proposed to abandon the height and retreat down the mountain. ”No,” said Don Alonso proudly; ”never did the banner of the house of Aguilar retreat one foot in the field of battle.” He had scarcely uttered these words when his son Pedro was stretched at his feet. A stone hurled from a cliff had struck out two of his teeth, and a lance pa.s.sed quivering through his thigh. The youth attempted to rise, and, with one knee on the ground, to fight by the side of his father.
Don Alonso, finding him wounded, urged him to quit the field. ”Fly, my son,” said he; ”let us not put everything at venture upon one hazard.
Conduct thyself as a good Christian, and live to comfort and honor thy mother.”
Don Pedro still refused to leave his side. Whereupon Don Alonso ordered several of his followers to bear him off by force. His friend Don Francisco Alvarez of Cordova, taking him in his arms, conveyed him to the quarters of the count of Urena, who had halted on the height at some distance from the scene of battle for the purpose of rallying and succoring the fugitives. Almost at the same moment the count beheld his own son, Don Pedro Giron, brought in grievously wounded.
In the mean time, Don Alonso, with two hundred cavaliers, maintained the unequal contest. Surrounded by foes, they fell, one after another, like so many stags encircled by the hunters. Don Alonso was the last survivor, without horse and almost without armor, his corselet unlaced and his bosom gashed with wounds. Still, he kept a brave front to the enemy, and, retiring between two rocks, defended himself with such valor that the slain lay in a heap before him.
He was a.s.sailed in this retreat by a Moor of surpa.s.sing strength and fierceness. The contest was for some time doubtful, but Don Alonso received a wound in the head, and another in the breast, which made him stagger. Closing and grappling with his foe, they had a desperate struggle, until the Christian cavalier, exhausted by his wounds, fell upon his back. He still retained his grasp upon his enemy. ”Think not,”