Complete Fictional Works of Washington Irving (Illustrated) (306 page)

CHAPTER LXXI
V.

EXPLOIT OF HERNANDO PEREZ DEL PULGAR AND OTHER CAVALIERS.

The siege of Baza, while it displayed the skill and science of the Christian commanders, gave but little scope for the adventurous spirit and fiery valor of the young Spanish cavaliers. They repined at the tedious monotony and dull security of their fortified camp, and longed for some soul-stirring exploit of difficulty and danger. Two of the most spirited of these youthful cavaliers were Francisco de Bazan and Antonio de Cueva, the latter of whom was son to the duke of Albuquerque. As they were one day seated on the ramparts of the camp, and venting their impatience at this life of inaction, they were overheard by a veteran adalid, one of those scouts or guides who were acquainted with all parts of the country. “Seniors,” said he, “if you wish for a service of peril and profit, if you are willing to pluck the fiery old Moor by the beard, I can lead you to where you may put your mettle to the proof. Hard by the city of Guadix are certain hamlets rich in booty. I can conduct you by a way in which you may come upon them by surprise, and if you are as cool in the head as you are hot in the spur, you may bear off your spoils from under the very eyes of old El Zagal.”

The idea of thus making booty at the very gates of Guadix pleased the hot-spirited youths. These predatory excursions were frequent about this time, and the Moors of Padul, Alhenden, and other towns of the Alpuxarras had recently harassed the Christian territories by expeditions of the kind. Francisco de Bazan and Antonio de Cueva soon found other young cavaliers of their age eager to join in the adventure, and in a little while they had nearly three hundred horse and two hundred foot ready equipped and eager for the foray.

Keeping their destination secret, they sallied out of the camp on the edge of an evening, and, guided by the adalid, made their way by starlight through the most secret roads of the mountains. In this way they pressed on rapidly day and night, until early one morning, before cock-crowing, they fell suddenly upon the hamlets, made prisoners of the inhabitants, sacked the houses, ravaged the fields, and, sweeping through the meadows, gathered together all the flocks and herds. Without giving themselves time to rest, they set out upon their return, making with all speed for the mountains before the alarm should be given and the country roused.

Several of the herdsmen, however, had fled to Guadix, and carried tidings of the ravage to El Zagal. The beard of old Muley trembled with rage: he immediately sent out six hundred of his choicest horse and foot, with orders to recover the booty and to bring those insolent marauders captive to Guadix.

The Christian cavaliers were urging their cavalgada of cattle and sheep up a mountain as fast as their own weariness would permit, when, looking back, they beheld a great cloud of dust, and presently descried the turbaned host hot upon their traces.

They saw that the Moors were superior in number; they were fresh also, both man and steed, whereas both they and their horses were fatigued by two days and two nights of hard marching. Several of the horsemen therefore gathered round the commanders and proposed that they should relinquish their spoil and save themselves by flight. The captains, Francisco de Bazan and Antonio de Cueva, spurned at such craven counsel. “What?” cried they, “abandon, our prey without striking a blow? Leave our foot-soldiers too in the lurch, to be overwhelmed by the enemy? If any one gives such counsel through fear, he mistakes the course of safety, for there is less danger in presenting a bold front to the foe than in turning a dastard back, and fewer men are killed in a brave advance than in a cowardly retreat.”

Some of the cavaliers were touched by these words, and declared that they would stand by the foot-soldiers like true companions-in-arms: the great mass of the party, however, were volunteers, brought together by chance, who received no pay nor had any common tie to keep them together in time of danger. The pleasure of the expedition being over, each thought but of his own safety, regardless of his companions. As the enemy approached the tumult of opinions increased and everything was in confusion. The captains, to put an end to the dispute, ordered the standard-bearer to advance against the Moors, well knowing that no true cavalier would hesitate to follow and defend his banner. The standard-bearer hesitated: the troops were on the point of taking to flight.

Upon this a cavalier of the royal guards rode to the front. It was Hernan Perez del Pulgar, alcayde of the fortress of Salar, the same dauntless ambassador who once bore to the turbulent people of Malaga the king’s summons to surrender. Taking off a handkerchief which he wore round his head after the Andalusian fashion, he tied it to the end of a lance and elevated it in the air. “Cavaliers,” cried he, “why do ye take weapons in your hands if you depend upon your feet for safety? This day will determine who is the brave man and who the coward. He who is disposed to fight shall not want a standard: let him follow this handkerchief.” So saying, he waved his banner and spurred bravely against the Moors. His example shamed some and filled others with generous emulation: all turned with one accord, and, following Pulgar, rushed with shouts upon the enemy. The Moors scarcely waited to receive the shock of their encounter. Seized with a panic, they took to flight, and were pursued for a considerable distance with great slaughter. Three hundred of their dead strewed the road, and were stripped and despoiled by the conquerors; many were taken prisoners, and the Christian cavaliers returned in triumph to the camp with a long cavalgada of sheep and cattle and mules laden with booty, and bearing before them the singular standard which had conducted them to victory.

King Ferdinand was so pleased with the gallant action of Hernan Perez del Pulgar that he immediately conferred on him the honor of knighthood, using in the ceremony the sword of Diego de Aguero, the captain of the royal guards; the duke of Esculona girded one of his own gilt spurs upon his heel, and the grand master of Santiago, the count de Cabra, and Gonsalvo of Cordova officiated as witnesses. Furthermore, to perpetuate in his family the memory of his achievement, the sovereigns authorized him to emblazon on his escutcheon a golden lion in an azure field, bearing a lance with a handkerchief at the end of it. Round the border of the escutcheon were depicted the eleven alcaydes vanquished in the battle.* The foregoing is but one of many hardy and heroic deeds done by this brave cavalier in the wars against the Moors, by which he gained great renown and the distinguished appellation of “El de las hazanas,” or “He of the exploits.”**

* Alcantara, Hist. de Granada, tomo iv. cap. 18; Pulgar, Cron.,

part iii.

Hernan or Hernando del Pulgar, the historian, secretary to Queen

Isabella, is confounded with this cavalier by some writers. He was also

present at the siege of Baza, and has recounted this transaction in his

Chronicle of the Catholic sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella.

CHAPTER LXX
V.

CONTINUATION OF THE SIEGE OF BAZA.

The Moorish king, El Zagal, mounted a tower and looked out eagerly to enjoy the sight of the Christian marauders brought captive into the gates of Guadix, but his spirits fell when he beheld his own troops stealing back in the dusk of the evening in broken and dejected parties.

The fortune of war bore hard against the old monarch; his mind was harassed by disastrous tidings brought each day from Baza, of the sufferings of the inhabitants, and the numbers of the garrison slain in the frequent skirmishes. He dared not go in person to the relief of the place, for his presence was necessary in Guadix to keep a check upon his nephew in Granada. He sent reinforcements and supplies, but they were intercepted and either captured or driven back. Still, his situation was in some respects preferable to that of his nephew Boabdil. He was battling like a warrior on the last step of his throne; El Chico remained a kind of pensioned vassal in the luxurious abode of the Alhambra. The chivalrous part of the inhabitants of Granada could not but compare the generous stand made by the warriors of Baza for their country and their faith with their own time-serving submission to the yoke of an unbeliever. Every account they received of the woes of Baza wrung their hearts with agony; every account of the exploits of its devoted defenders brought blushes to their cheeks. Many stole forth secretly with their weapons and hastened to join the besieged, and the partisans of El Zagal wrought upon the patriotism and passions of the remainder until another of those conspiracies was formed that were continually menacing the unsteady throne of Granada. It was concerted by the conspirators to assail the Alhambra on a sudden, slay Boabdil, assemble the troops, and march to Guadix, where, being reinforced by the garrison of that place and led on by the old warrior monarch, they might fall with overwhelming power upon the Christian army before Baza.

Fortunately for Boabdil, he discovered the conspiracy in time, and the heads of the leaders were struck off and placed upon the walls of the Alhambra — an act of severity unusual with this mild and wavering monarch, which struck terror into the disaffected, and produced a kind of mute tranquillity throughout the city.

Ferdinand had full information of all the movements and measures for the relief of Baza, and took precautions to prevent them. Bodies of horsemen held watch in the mountain-passes to prevent supplies and intercept any generous volunteers from Granada, and watchtowers were erected or scouts placed on every commanding height to give the alarm at the least sign of a hostile turban.

The prince Cid Hiaya and his brave companions-in-arms were thus gradually walled up, as it were, from the rest of the world. A line of towers, the battlements of which bristled with troops, girded their city, and behind the intervening bulwarks and palisadoes passed and repassed continual squadrons of troops. Week after week and month after month passed away, but Ferdinand waited in vain for the garrison to be either terrified or starved into surrender. Every day they sallied forth with the spirit and alacrity of troops high fed and flushed with confidence. “The Christian monarch,” said the veteran Mohammed Ibn Hassan, “builds his hopes upon our growing faint and desponding — we must manifest unusual cheerfulness and vigor. What would be rashness in other service becomes prudence with us.” The prince Cid Hiaya agreed with him in opinion, and sallied forth with his troops upon all kinds of harebrained exploits. They laid ambushes, concerted surprises, and made the most desperate assaults. The great extent of the Christian works rendered them weak in many parts: against these the Moors directed their attacks, suddenly breaking into them, making a hasty ravage, and bearing off their booty in triumph to the city. Sometimes they would sally forth by passes and clefts of the mountain in the rear of the city which it was difficult to guard, and, hurrying down into the plain, sweep off all cattle and sheep that were grazing near the suburbs and all stragglers from the camp.

These partisan sallies brought on many sharp and bloody encounters, in some of which Don Alonso de Aguilar and the alcayde de los Donceles distinguished themselves greatly. During one of these hot skirmishes, which happened on the skirts of the mountain about twilight, a cavalier named Martin Galindo beheld a powerful Moor dealing deadly blows about him and making great havoc among the Christians. Galindo pressed forward and challenged him to single combat. The Moor was not slow in answering the call.

Couching their lances, they rushed furiously upon each other. At the first shock the Moor was wounded in the face and borne out of his saddle. Before Galindo could check his steed and turn from his career the Moor sprang upon his feet, recovered his lance, and, rushing upon him, wounded him in the head and the arm. Though Galindo was on horseback and the Moor on foot, yet such was the prowess and address of the latter that the Christian knight, being disabled in the arm, was in the utmost peril when his comrades hastened to his assistance. At their approach the valiant pagan retreated slowly up the rocks, keeping them at bay until he found himself among his companions.

Several of the young Spanish cavaliers, stung by the triumph of this Moslem knight, would have challenged others of the Moors to single combat, but King Ferdinand prohibited all vaunting encounters of the kind. He forbade his troops also to provoke skirmishes, well knowing that the Moors were more dextrous than most people in this irregular mode of fighting, and were better acquainted with the ground.

CHAPTER LXXV
I.

HOW TWO FRIARS FROM THE HOLY LAND ARRIVED AT THE CAMP.

While the holy Christian army (says Fray Antonio Agapida) was thus beleaguering this infidel city of Baza there rode into the camp one day two reverend friars of the order of St. Francis. One was of portly person and authoritative air: he bestrode a goodly steed, well conditioned and well caparisoned, while his companion rode beside him upon a humble hack, poorly accoutred, and, as he rode, he scarcely raised his eyes from the ground, but maintained a meek and lowly air.

The arrival of two friars in the camp was not a matter of much note, for in these holy wars the Church militant continually mingled in the affray, and helmet and cowl were always seen together; but it was soon discovered that these worthy saints-errant were from a far country and on a mission of great import.

They were, in truth, just arrived from the Holy Land, being two of the saintly men who kept vigil over the sepulchre of our Blessed Lord at Jerusalem. He of the tall and portly form and commanding presence was Fray Antonio Millan, prior of the Franciscan convent in the Holy City. He had a full and florid countenance, a sonorous voice, and was round and swelling and copious in his periods, like one accustomed to harangue and to be listened to with deference. His companion was small and spare in form, pale of visage, and soft and silken and almost whispering in speech. “He had a humble and lowly way,” says Agapida, “evermore bowing the head, as became one of his calling.” Yet he was one of the most active, zealous, and effective brothers of the convent, and when he raised his small black eye from the earth there was a keen glance out of the corner which showed that, though harmless as a dove, he was nevertheless as wise as a serpent.

These holy men had come on a momentous embassy from the grand soldan of Egypt, or, as Agapida terms him in the language of the day, the soldan of Babylon. The league which had been made between that potentate and his arch-foe the Grand Turk, Bajazet II., to unite in arms for the salvation of Granada, as has been mentioned in a previous chapter of this chronicle, had come to naught. The infidel princes had again taken up arms against each other, and had relapsed into their ancient hostility. Still, the grand soldan, as head of the whole Moslem religion, considered himself bound to preserve the kingdom of Granada from the grasp of unbelievers. He despatched, therefore, these two holy friars with letters to the Castilian sovereigns, as well as to the pope and to the king of Naples, remonstrating against the evils done to the Moors of the kingdom of Granada, who were of his faith and kindred whereas it was well known that great numbers of Christians were indulged and protected in the full enjoyment of their property, their liberty, and their faith in his dominions. He insisted, therefore, that this war should cease — that the Moors of Granada should be reinstated in the territory of which they had been dispossessed: otherwise he threatened to put to death all the Christians beneath his sway, to demolish their convents and temples, and to destroy the Holy Sepulchre.

This fearful menace had spread consternation among the Christians of Palestine, and when the intrepid Fray Antonio Millan and his lowly companion departed on their mission they were accompanied far from the gates of Jerusalem by an anxious throng of brethren and disciples, who remained watching them with tearful eyes as long as they were in sight. These holy ambassadors were received with great distinction by King Ferdinand, for men of their cloth had ever high honor and consideration in his court. He had long and frequent conversations with them about the Holy Land, the state of the Christian Church in the dominions of the grand soldan, and of the policy and conduct of that arch-infidel toward it. The portly prior of the Franciscan convent was full and round and oratorical in his replies, and the king expressed himself much pleased with the eloquence of his periods; but the politic monarch was observed to lend a close and attentive ear to the whispering voice of the lowly companion, “whose discourse,” adds Agapida, “though modest and low, was clear and fluent and full of subtle wisdom.” These holy friars had visited Rome in their journeying, where they had delivered the letter of the soldan to the sovereign pontiff. His Holiness had written by them to the Castilian sovereigns, requesting to know what reply they had to offer to this demand of the Oriental potentate.

The king of Naples also wrote to them on the subject, but in wary terms. He inquired into the cause of this war with the Moors of Granada, and expressed great marvel at its events, as if (says Agapida) both were not notorious throughout all the Christian world. “Nay,” adds the worthy friar with becoming indignation, “he uttered opinions savoring of little better than damnable heresy; for he observed that, although the Moors were of a different sect, they ought not to be maltreated without just cause; and hinted that if the Castilian sovereigns did not suffer any crying injury from the Moors, it would be improper to do anything which might draw great damage upon the Christians — as if, when once the sword of the faith was drawn, it ought ever to be sheathed until this scum of heathendom were utterly destroyed or driven from the land. But this monarch,” he continues, “was more kindly disposed toward the infidels than was honest and lawful in a Christian prince, and was at that very time in league with the soldan against their common enemy the Grand Turk.”

These pious sentiments of the truly Catholic Agapida are echoed by Padre Mariana in his history;* but the worthy chronicler Pedro Abarca attributes the interference of the king of Naples not to lack of orthodoxy in religion, but to an excess of worldly policy, he being apprehensive that should Ferdinand conquer the Moors of Granada he might have time and means to assert a claim of the house of Aragon to the crown of Naples.

* Mariana, lib. 25, cap. 15.

“King Ferdinand,” continues the worthy father Pedro Abarca, “was no less master of dissimulation than his cousin of Naples; so he replied to him with the utmost suavity of manner, going into a minute and patient vindication of the war, and taking great apparent pains to inform him of those things which all the world knew, but of which the other pretended to be ignorant.”* At the same time he soothed his solicitude about the fate of the Christians in the empire of the grand soldan, assuring him that the great revenue extorted from them in rents and tributes would be a certain protection against the threatened violence.

* Abarca, Anales de Aragon, Rey xxx. cap. 3.

To the pope he made the usual vindication of the war — that it was for the recovery of ancient territory usurped by the Moors, for the punishment of wars and violences inflicted upon the Christians, and, finally, that it was a holy crusade for the glory and advancement of the Church.

“It was a truly edifying sight,” says Agapida, “to behold these friars, after they had had their audience of the king, moving about the camp always surrounded by nobles and cavaliers of high and martial renown. These were insatiable in their questions about the Holy Land, the state of the sepulchre of our Lord, and the sufferings of the devoted brethren who guarded it and the pious pilgrims who resorted there to pay their vows. The portly prior of the convent would stand with lofty and shining countenance in the midst of these iron warriors and declaim with resounding eloquence on the history of the sepulchre, but the humbler brother would ever and anon sigh deeply, and in low tones utter some tale of suffering and outrage, at which his steel-clad hearers would grasp the hilts of their swords and mutter between their clenched teeth prayers for another crusade.”

The pious friars, having finished their mission to the king and been treated with all due distinction, took their leave, and wended their way to Jaen, to visit the most Catholic of queens. Isabella, whose heart was the seat of piety, received them as sacred men invested with more than human dignity. During their residence at Jaen they were continually in the royal presence: the respectable prior of the convent moved and melted the ladies of the court by his florid rhetoric, but his lowly companion was observed to have continual access to the royal ear. That saintly and soft-spoken messenger (says Agapida) received the reward of his humility; for the queen, moved by his frequent representations, made in all modesty and lowliness of spirit, granted a yearly sum in perpetuity of one thousand ducats in gold for the support of the monks of the Convent of the Holy Sepulchre.*

* “La Reyna dio a los Frayles mil ducados de renta cado ano para

el sustento de los religiosos del santo sepulcro, que es la mejor

limosna y sustento que hasta nuestros dias ha quedado a estos religiosos

de Gerusalem: para donde les dio la Reyna un velo labrado por sus manos,

para poner encima de la santa sepultura del Senor.” — Garibay, “Compend

Hist.,” lib. 18, cap. 36.

Moreover, on the departure of these holy ambassadors, the excellent and most Catholic queen delivered to them a veil devoutly embroidered with her own royal hands, to be placed over the Holy Sepulchre; — a precious and inestimable present, which called forth a most eloquent tribute of thanks from the portly prior, but which brought tears into the eyes of his lowly companion.*

* It is proper to mention the result of this mission of the two friars,

and which the worthy Agapida has neglected to record. At a subsequent

period the Catholic sovereigns sent the distinguished historian, Pietro

Martyr of Angleria, as ambassador to the grand soldan. That able man

made such representations as were perfectly satisfactory to the Oriental

potentate. He also obtained from him the remission of many exactions

and extortions heretofore practised upon Christian pilgrims visiting

the Holy Sepulchre; which, it is presumed, had been gently but cogently

detailed to the monarch by the lowly friar. Pietro Martyr wrote an

account of his embassy to the grand soldan — a work greatly esteemed by

the learned and containing much curious information. It is entitled “De

Legatione Babylonica.”