The people of Velez Malaga had beheld the camp of Muley Abdallah
covering the summit of Bentomiz and glittering in the last rays of
the setting sun. During the night they had been alarmed and
perplexed by signal-fires on the mountain and by the sound of distant
battle. When the morning broke the Moorish army had vanished
as if by enchantment. While the inhabitants were lost in wonder and
conjecture, a body of cavalry, the fragment of the army saved by
Reduan de Vanegas, the brave alcayde of Granada, came galloping
to the gates. The tidings of the strange discomfiture of the host
filled the city with consternation, but Reduan exhorted the people
to continue their resistance. He was devoted to El Zagal and
confident in his skill and prowess, and felt assured that he would
soon collect his scattered forces and return with fresh troops from
Granada. The people were comforted by the words and encouraged
by the presence of Reduan, and they had still a lingering hope that the
heavy artillery of the Christians might be locked up in the impassable
defiles of the mountains. This hope was soon at an end. The very
next day they beheld long laborious lines of ordnance slowly moving
into the Spanish camp--lombards, ribadoquines, catapults, and cars
laden with munitions--while the escort, under the brave master of
Alcantara, wheeled in great battalions into the camp to augment the
force of the besiegers.

The intelligence that Granada had shut its gates against El Zagal,
and that no reinforcements were to be expected, completed the
despair of the inhabitants; even Reduan himself lost confidence
and advised capitulation.