REJOICINGS OF THE CHRISTIANS. 443 ards of the cross and of the blessed Santiago, and of the Catholic sovereigns, were elevated on the principal tower of the Alcazaba. When these standards were beheld from the camp, the queen and the princess and the ladies. of the court, and all the royal retinue, knelt down and gave thanks and praises to the holy virgin and to Santiago, for this great triumph of the faith; and the bishops and other clergy who were present, and the choristers of the royal chapel, chanted "Te Deum Laudamus,” and "Gloria in Excelsis." CHAPTER LXV. FULFILLMENT OF THE PROPHECY OF THE DERVISE.-FATE OF HAMET EL ZEGRI. 10 sooner was the city delivered up, than the wretched inhabitants implored permission to purchase bread for themselves and their children, from the heaps of grain which they had so often gazed at wistfully from their walls. Their prayer was granted, and they issued forth with the famished eagerness of starving men. It was piteous to behold the struggles of those unhappy people, as they contended who first should have their necessities relieved. "Thus," says the pious Fray Antonio Agapida, "thus are the predictions of false prophets sometimes permitted to be verified, but always to the confusion of those who trust in them for the words of the Moorish nigromancer came to pass, that the people of Malaga should eat of those heaps of bread; but they ate in humiliation and defeat, and with sorrow and bitterness of heart." : Dark and fierce were the feelings of Hamet el Zegri, as he looked down from the castle of Gibralfaro, and beheld the Christian legions pouring into the city, and the stand RESOLUTION OF EL ZEGRI. 445 ard of the cross supplanting the crescent on the citadel. "The people of Malaga," said he, "have trusted to a man of trade, and he has trafficked them away; but let us not suffer ourselves to be bound hand and foot, and delivered up as part of his bargain. We have yet strong walls around us, and trusty weapons in our hands. Let us fight until buried beneath the last tumbling tower of Gibralfaro, or, rushing down from among its ruins, carry havoc among the unbelievers, as they throng the streets of Malaga!" The fierceness of the Gomeres, however, was broken. They could have died in the breach, had their castle been assailed; but the slow advances of famine subdued their strength without rousing their passions, and sapped the force both of soul and body. They were almost unanimous for a surrender. It was a hard struggle for the proud spirit of Hamet to bow itself to ask for terms. Still he trusted that the valor of his defense would gain him respect in the eyes of a chivalrous foe. "Ali," said he, "has negotiated like a merchant; I will capitulate as a soldier." He sent a herald, therefore, to Ferdinand, offering to yield up his castle, but demanding a separate treaty.* The Castilian sovereign made a laconic and stern reply: "He shall receive no terms but such as have been granted to the community of Malaga." * Cura de los Palacios, cap. 84. For two days Hamet el Zegri remained brooding in his castle, after the city was in possession of the Christians; at length, the clamors of his followers compelled him to surrender. When the remnant of this fierce African garrison descended from their cragged fortress, they were so worn by watchfulness, famine, and battle, yet carried such a lurking fury in their eyes, that they looked more like fiends than men. They were all condemned to slavery, excepting Ibrahim Zenete. The instance of clemency which he had shown in refraining to harm the Spanish striplings, on the last sally from Malaga, won him favorable terms. It was cited as a magnanimous act by the Spanish cavaliers, and all admitted, that though a Moor in blood, he possessed the Christian heart of a Castilian hidalgo.* As to Hamet el Zegri, on being asked what moved him to such hardened obstinacy, he replied, "When I undertook my command, I pledged myself to fight in defense of my faith, my city, and my sovereign, until slain or made prisoner; and depend upon it, had I had men to stand by me, I should have died fighting, instead of thus tamely surrendering myself without a weapon in hand." my "Such," says the pious Fray Antonio Agapida, “was the diabolical hatred and stiff-necked opposition of this infidel to our holy cause. But he was justly served by *Cura de los Palacios, cap. 84. FATE OF HAMET EL ZEGRI. 447 our most Catholic and high-minded sovereign, for his pertinacious defense of the city; for Ferdinand ordered that he should be loaded with chains and thrown into a dungeon." He was subsequently retained in rigorous confinement at Carmona.* * Pulgar, pt. 3, cap. 93. Pietro Martyr, lib. 1, cap. 69. Alcantara, Hist. Granada, vol. 4, c. 18. |