A TALE OF MALAGA.

It was the morning of the day succeeding that which had beheld the terrible defeat, among the savage glens and mountain fastnesses of Axarquia, of that magnificent array of cavaliers which, not a week before, had pranced forth from the walls of Antiquera, superbly mounted on Andalusian steeds, fiery, and fleet, and fearless, with helm and shield and corslet engrailed with arabesques of gold, surcoats of velvet and rich broidery, plumes of the desert bird, and all in short that can add pomp and circumstance to the dread game of war. The strife was over in the mountain valleys; the lonely hollows on the bare hill-side, the stony channels of the torrent, the tangled thicket, and the bleak barren summit, were cumbered with the carcasses of Spain’s most noble cavaliers. War-steeds beside their riders, knights of the proudest lineage among their lowliest vassals, lay cold and grim and ghastly, each where the shaft, the stone, the assagay, had stretched beneath him, beneath the garish lustre of the broad southern sun. The Moorish foe had vanished from the field, which he had won almost without a struggle—the plunderer of the dead plied his hateful trade even to satiety, and, gorged with booty that might well satiate the wildest avarice, had left the field of slaughter 408to the possession of his brute comrades, the wolf, the raven, and the eagle.

It was now morning, and the broad sun, high already, was pouring down a flood of light over the giant crags, the deep precipitous defiles, and all the stern though glorious features which mark the mountain scenery of Malaga; and far beyond over the broad, luxuriant Vega, watered by its ten thousand streams of crystal, waving with olive-groves, and vineyards, and dark woodlands; and farther yet over the laughing waters of the bright Mediterranean. But one, who having found concealment during that night of wo and slaughter in some dark cave, or gully so sequestered that it had escaped the keen eyes of the Moorish mountaineers, now plied his bloody spurs almost in vain, so weary and so faint was the beautiful bay steed which bore him. He paused not to look upon the wonders of his road, tarried not to observe the play of light and shadow over that glorious plain, although by nature he was fitted to admire and to love all that she had framed of wild, of beautiful, or of romantic. Nay more, he scarcely turned his eye to gaze upon the miserable relics of some beloved comrade, who had so often revelled gayly, and in that last awful carnage had striven fearlessly and well, even when all was lost, beside him. He was a tall dark-featured youth, with a profusion of black hair clustered in short close curls about a high pale forehead; an eye that glanced like fire at every touch of passion, yet melted at the slightest claim upon his pity; an aquiline, thin nose, and mouth well cut, but compressed and closely set, completed the detail of his eminently handsome features. But the dark curls—for he had been on the preceding day unhelmed and slightly wounded—were clotted with stiff gore, matted with dust, and bleached by the hot sun under which he had for hours fought bareheaded. The keen, quick eye was dull and glazed, the haughty lineaments clouded with shame, anxiety,409 and grief, and the chiselled lips pale and cold as ashes. His armor, which had been splendid in the extreme, richly embossed and sculptured, was all defaced with dust and gore, broken and dinted, and in many places riven quite asunder. The surcoat which he had donned a few short days before, of azure damask, charged with the bearings of his proud ancestral race, fluttered in rags upon the morning breeze—his shield was gone, as were the mace and battle-axe which had swung from his saddle-bow—his sword, a long, cross-handled blade, and his lance, its azure pennoncelle no less than its steel head, crusted and black with blood, alone remained to him. The scabbard of his poignard was empty, and the silver hilt of his sword, ill-matched with the gilded sheath, showed plainly that it was not the weapon to which his hand was used. Yet still, though disarrayed, weary, and travel-spent, and worn with wo and watching, no eye could have looked on him without recognising in every trait, in every gesture, the undaunted knight and the accomplished noble.

Hours had passed away, since, with the first gray twilight of the dawn he had come forth from the precarious hiding-place wherein he had spent a terrible and painful night; and so far he had seen no human form, living at least, and heard no human voice! Unimpaired, save by the faintness of his reeling charger, he had ridden six long leagues over the perilous and rugged path by which, late on the previous night, the bravest of the brave, Alonzo de Aguilar, had by hard dint of hoof and spur escaped from the wild infantry of El Zagal to the far walls of Antiquera; and now from a bold and projecting summit he looked down upon the ramparts of that city, across a rich and level plain, into which sloped abruptly the steep ridge on which he stood, at less than a league’s distance. Here, for the first time, since he had set forth on his toilsome route, the knight drew up his staggering horse—for the first time a gleam of410 hope irradiating his wan brow—and, as a pious cavalier is ever bound to do, stretched forth his gauntleted hands to Heaven, and in a low, deep murmur breathed forth his heartfelt thanksgivings to Him, who had preserved him from the clutches of the pitiless heathen. This duty finished, with a lighter heart he wheeled his charger round an abrupt angle of the limestone-rock, and, plunging into the shade of the dense cork-woods which clothed the whole descent, followed the steep and zigzag path, by which he hoped ere long to reach his friends in safety. His horse, too, which had staggered wearily and stumbled often, as he ascended the rude hills, seemed to have gained new courage; for as he turned the corner of the rock, he pricked his ears and snorted, and the next moment uttered a long, tremulous, shrill neigh, quickening his pace—which for the last two hours he had hardly done at the solicitation of the spur—into a brisk and lively canter. Before, however, his rider had found time to debate upon the cause of this fresh vigor, the neigh was answered from below by the sharp whinny of a war-horse, which was succeeded instantly by the clatter of several hoofs, and the long barbaric blast of a Moorish horn. The first impulse of the cavalier was to quit the beaten path, and dashing into the thickets to conceal himself until his foemen should have passed by. Prudent, however, as was his determination, and promptly as he turned to execute it, he was anticipated by the appearance of at least half a score of Moorish horsemen—who, sitting erect in their deep Turkish saddles, goring the sides of their slight Arabian coursers with the edges of their broad sharp stirrups, and brandishing their long assagays above their heads, dashed forward with their loud ringing Lelilies, to charge the solitary Spaniard. Faint as he was, and in ill-plight for battle, there needed but the sight of the heathen foe to send each drop of his Castilian blood eddying in hot currents through every vein of411 the brave Spaniard. “St. Jago!” he cried, in clear and musical tones, “St. Jago and God aid!” and with the word he laid his long lance in the rest, and spurred his charger to the shock. It was not, however, either the usual mode of warfare with the Moors, or their intent at present to meet the shock of the impetuous and heavily armed cavalier. One of their number, it is true, dashed out as if to meet him—a spare gray-headed man, whose years, although they had worn away the soundness, and destroyed the muscular symmetry of his frame, had spared the lithe and wiry sinews; had dried up all that was superfluous of his flesh, and withered all that was comely of his aspect; but had left him erect, and strong and hardy as in his youngest days of warfare. His dress, caftan and turban both, were of that dark-green hue, which bespoke an emir, or lineal descendant of the prophet—the only order of nobility acknowledged by the Moslemin—while the rich materials of which they were composed, the jewels which bedecked the hilt and scabbard of both cimeter and yatagan, the necklaces of gold which encircled the broad glossy chest of his high-blooded black Arabian, proved as unerringly his wealth and consequence. Forth he dashed then, with the national war-cry, “La illah allah la!” brandishing in his right hand the long, light javelin, grasped by the middle, which his countrymen were wont to hurl against their adversaries, with such unerring accuracy both of hand and eye; and swinging on his left arm a light round buckler, of the tough hide of the African buffalo, studded with knobs of silver; while with his long reins flying as it would seem quite loose, by aid of his sharp Moorish curb, he wheeled his fiery horse from side to side so rapidly as quite to balk the aim of the Spaniard’s level lance. As the old mussulman advanced, fearlessly as it seemed, against the Christian knight, his comrades galloped on abreast with him, but by no means with the same steadiness of purpose, the track was indeed 412so narrow that three could hardly ride abreast in it; yet narrow as it was, the nearest followers of the emir did not attempt to keep it; on the contrary, giving their wild coursers the sharp edge of their stirrups, they leaped and bolted from one side to the other of the path now plunging into the open wood on either hand, and dashing furiously over rock and stone, now pressing straightforward for perhaps a hundred yards as if to bear down bodily on their antagonist. All this, it must be understood, passed in less time than it has taken to describe it; for though the enemies, when first their eyes caught sight of one another, were some five hundred yards apart, the speed of their fleet horses brought them rapidly to close quarters. And now they were upon the very point of meeting—the Spaniard bowing his unhelmed head behind his charger’s neck, to shield as best he might that vital part from the thrust of the flashing assagay with his lance projecting ten feet at the least, before the chamfront which protected the brow of his barbed war-horse, and the sheath of his twohanded broadsword clanging and rattling at every bound of the horse against the steel-plates which protected the legs of the man-at-arms!—the Moor sitting erect, nay, almost standing up in his short stirrups, with his keen, black eye glancing from beneath the shadow of his turban, and his spear poised and quivering on high. Now they were scarce a horse’s length asunder, when, with a shrill, peculiar yell, the old Moor wheeled his horse out of the road, and dashed into the wood, his balked antagonist being borne aimlessly right onward into the little knot of men who followed on the emir’s track. Not far, however, was he borne onward; for, with a second yell, even shriller than before, the moslem curbed his Arab, till he stood bolt upright, and turning sharp round, with such velocity that he seemed actually to whirl about as if upon a pivot, darted back on him, and with the speed of light hurled the long assagay. Just at that point of time the lance413 point of the Spaniard was within a hand’s breadth of the buckler—frail guard to the breast—of the second of those eastern warriors, but it was never doomed to pierce it. The light reed hurtled through the air, and its keen head of steel, hurled with most accurate aim, found a joint in the barbings of the war-horse. Exactly in that open and unguarded spot, which intervenes between the hip-bone and the ribs, it entered—it drove through the bright and glistening hide, through muscle, brawn, and sinew—clear through the vitals of the tortured brute, and even—with such tremendous vigor was it sent from that old arm—through the ribs on the farther side. With an appalling shriek, the agonized animal sprung up, with all his feet into the air, six feet at least in height, then plunged head foremost! Yet, strange to say, such was the masterly and splendid horsemanship, such was the cool steadiness of the European warrior, that, as his charger fell, rolling over and over, writhing and kicking in the fierce death-struggle, he alighted firmly and fairly on his feet. Without a second’s interval, for he had cast his heavy lance far from him, while his steed was yet in air, he whirled his long sword from its scabbard, and struck with the full sweep of his practised arm at the nearest of the Saracens, who were now wheeling round him, circling and yelling like a flock of sea-fowl. Full on the neck of a delicate and fine-limbed Arab, just at the juncture of the spine and skull, did the sheer blow take place; and cleaving the vertebr? asunder, and half the thickness of the muscular flesh below them, hurled the horse lifeless, and the rider stunned and senseless to the earth at his feet. A second sweep of the same ponderous blade brought down a second warrior, with his right arm half-severed from his body; a third time it was raised; but ere it fell, another javelin, launched by the same aged hand, whizzed through the air, and took effect a little way below the elbow-joint, just where the brassard and the gauntlet met, the trenchant-point414 pierced through between the bones, narrowly missing the great artery, and the uplifted sword sunk harmless! A dull expression of despair settled at once over the bright expressive features, which had so lately been enkindled by the fierce ardor and excitement of the conflict. His left hand dropped, as it were instinctively, to the place where it should have found the hilt of his dagger; but the sheath was empty, and the proud warrior stood, with his right arm dropping to his side, transfixed by the long lance, and streaming with dark blood, glaring, in impotent defiance, upon his now triumphant enemies. The nature of the Moorish tribes had been, it should be here observed, very materially altered, since they had crossed the straits; they were no longer the cruel, pitiless invaders offering no option to the vanquished, but of the Koran or the cimeter; but, softened by intercourse with the Christians, and having imbibed, during the lapse of ages spent in continual warfare against the most gallant and accomplished cavaliers of Europe, much of the true spirit of chivalry, they had adopted many of the best points of that singular institution. Among the principal results of this alteration in the national character was this—that they now no longer ruthlessly slaughtered unresisting foes, but, affecting to be guided by the principles of knightly courtesy, held all to mercy who were willing to confess themselves overcome. When, therefore, it was evident that any farther resistance was out of the question, the old emir leaping down from his charger’s back, with all the agility of a boy, unsheathed his Damascus cimeter, a narrow, crooked blade, with a hilt elaborately carved and jewelled, and strode slowly up to face the wounded Christian.

“Yield thee,” he said, in calm and almost courteous tones—using the lingua Franca, or mixed tongue, half Arabic, half Spanish, which formed the ordinary medium of communication between the two discordant races which at that time occupied415 the great peninsula of Europe—“yield thee, sir knight! thou art sore wounded, and enough hast thou done already, and enough suffered, to entitle thee to all praise of valor, to all privilege of courtesy.”

“To whom must I yield me, emir?” queried the Christian, in reply; “to whom must I yield? since yield I needs must; for, as you truly say, I can indeed resist no longer. I pray thee, of thy courtesy, inform me?”

“To me—Muley Abdallah el Zagal!”

“Nor unto nobler chief or braver warrior could any cavalier surrender. Therefore, I yield myself true captive, rescue or no rescue!” and as he spoke he handed the long silver-hilted sword, which he had so well wielded, to his captor. But the old Moor put aside the proffered weapon. “Wear it,” he said, “wear it, sir, your pledged word suffices that you will not unsheath it. Shame were it to deprive so good a cavalier of the sword he hath used so gallantly! But lo! your wound bleeds grievously. I pray you sit, and let your hurt be tended—Ho! Hamet, Hassan, lend a hand here to unarm this good gentleman. I pray you, sir, inform me of your style and title.”

“I am styled Roderigo de Narvaez,” returned the cavalier, “equerry and banner-bearer to the most noble Don Diego de Cordova, the famous count of Cabra!”

“Then be assured, Don Roderigo, of being, at my hands, entreated with all due courtesy and honor—till that the good count shall arrange for thy ransom or exchange.”

A little while sufficed to draw off the gauntlet, to cut the shaft of the lance, where the steel protruded entirely through the wounded arm, and to draw it out by main force from between the bones, which it had actually strained asunder. But so great was the violence which it was necessary to exert, and so great was the suffering which it caused, that the stout warrior actually swooned away; nor did he altogether recover his416 senses, although every possible means at that time known were applied for his restoration, until the blood had been stanched, and a rude, temporary litter, framed of lances bound together by the scarfs and baldrics of the emir’s retinue, and strewn with war-cloaks was prepared for him. Just as this slender vehicle was perfected and slung between the saddles of four warriors, the color returned to the pallid lips and cheeks of the brave Spaniard, and gradually animation was restored. In the meantime, the escort of El Zagal had been increased by the arrival of many bands of steel-clad warriors, returning from the pursuit of the routed Spaniards; until at length a grand host was collected, comprising several thousands of soldiery, of every species of force at that time in use—cavalry, archers, infantry, arrayed beneath hundreds of many colored banners, and marching gayly on to the blithe music of war-drum, atabal, and clarion. The direction of the route taken by this martial company was the same wild, desolate, and toilsome road, by which Don Roderigo had so nearly escaped that morning. All day long did they march beneath a burning sun and cloudless sky, the fierce heat insupportably reflected from the white limestone crags, and sandy surface of the roads; and so tremendous were its effects, that many of the horses and mules, laden with baggage, which accompanied the cavalcade, died on the wayside; while the wounded captive, between anxiety and pain, and the incessant jolting of the litter, was in a state of fever bordering nearly on delirium, during the whole of the............