RESULT OF THE STRATAGEM OF EL ZAGAL TO SURPRISE
KING FERDINAND.


Queen Isabella and her court had remained at Cordova in great
anxiety for the result of the royal expedition. Every day brought
tidings of the difficulties which attended the transportation of the
ordnance and munitions and of the critical state of the army.

While in this state of anxious suspense couriers arrived with all
speed from the frontiers, bringing tidings of the sudden sally of El
Zagal from Granada to surprise the camp. All Cordova was in
consternation. The destruction of the Andalusian chivalry among
the mountains of this very neighborhood was called to mind; it
was feared that similar ruin was about to burst forth from rocks
and precipices upon Ferdinand and his army.

Queen Isabella shared in the public alarm, but it served to rouse
all the energies of her heroic mind. Instead of uttering idle
apprehensions, she sought only how to avert the danger. She called
upon all the men of Andalusia under the age of seventy to arm and
hasten to the relief of their sovereign, and she prepared to set out
with the first levies. The grand cardinal of Spain, old Pedro Gonzalez
de Mendoza, in whom the piety of the saint and the wisdom of the
counsellor were mingled with the fire of the cavalier, offered high
pay to all horsemen who would follow him to aid their king and the
Christian cause, and, buckling on armor, prepared to lead them
to the scene of danger.