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The day slowly dawned upon that awful night; and the Moors, still uponthe battlements of Granada, beheld the whole army of Ferdinand on itsmarch towards their wails. At a distance lay the wrecks of the blackenedand smouldering camp; while before them, gaudy and glittering pennonswaving, and trumpets sounding, came the exultant legions of the foe. TheMoors could scarcely believe their senses. Fondly anticipating theretreat of the Christians, after so signal a disaster, the gay anddazzling spectacle of their march to the assault filled them withconsternation and alarm.
While yet wondering and inactive, the trumpet of Boabdil was heardbehind; and they beheld the Moorish king, at the head of his guards,emerging down the avenues that led to the gate. The sight restored andexhilarated the gazers; and, when Boabdil halted in the space before theportals, the shout of twenty thousand warriors rose ominously to the earsof the advancing Christians.
"Men of Granada!" said Boabdil, as soon as the deep and breathlesssilence had succeeded to that martial acclamation,—"the advance of theenemy is to their destruction! In the fire of last night the hand ofAllah wrote their doom. Let us forth, each and all! We will leave ourhomes unguarded—our hearts shall be their wall! True, that our numbersare thinned by famine and by slaughter, but enough of us are yet left forthe redemption of Granada. Nor are the dead departed from us: the deadfight with us—their souls animate our own. He who has lost a brother,becomes twice a man. On this battle we will set all. Liberty or chains!empire or exile! victory or death! Forward!"
He spoke, and gave the rein to his barb. It bounded forward, and clearedthe gloomy arch of the portals, and Boabdil el Chico was the first Moorwho issued from Granada, to that last and eventful field. Out, then,poured, as a river that rushes from caverns into day, the burnished andserried files of the Moorish cavalry. Muza came the last, closing thearray. Upon his dark and stern countenance there spoke not the ardententhusiasm of the sanguine king. It was locked and rigid; and theanxieties of the last dismal weeks had thinned his cheeks, and plougheddeep lines around the firm lips and iron jaw which bespoke the obstinateand unconquerable resolution of his character.
As Muza now spurred forward, and, riding along the wheeling ranks,marshalled them in order, arose the acclamation of female voices; and thewarriors, who looked back at the sound, saw that their women—their wivesand daughters, their mothers and their beloved (released from theirseclusion, by a policy which bespoke the desperation of the cause)—weregazing at them, with outstretched arms, from the battlements and towers.The Moors knew that they were now to fight for their hearths and altarsin the presence of those who, if they failed, became slaves and harlots;and each Moslem felt his heart harden like the steel