fifty lances. The richness of
their armor and attire showed them to be warriors of noble rank, and their
leader had a lofty and prince-like demeanor.

For two nights and a day the cavalcade made its way through that rugged
country, avoiding settled places and choosing the most solitary passes of
the mountains. Their hardships were severe, but campaigning was their
trade and their horses were of generous spirit. It was midnight when they
left the hills and rode through darkness and silence to the city of
Granada, under the shadows of whose high walls they passed to the gate of
the Albaycin. Here the leader ordered his followers to halt and remain
concealed. Taking four or five with him, he advanced to the gate and
struck upon it with the handle of his scimitar.

"Who is it knocks at this unseasonable hour of the night?" demanded the
warder within.

"Your king," was the answer. "Open and admit him."

Opening a wicket, the warder held forth a light and looked at the man
without. Recognizing him at a glance, he opened the gate, and the
cavalier, who had feared a less favorable reception, rode in with his
followers and galloped in haste to the hill of the Albaycin, where the
new-comers knocked loudly at the doors of the principal dwellings, bidding
their tenants to rise and take arms for their lawful sovereign. The
summons was obeyed. Trumpets soon resounded in the streets; the gleam of
torches lit the dark avenues and flashed upon naked steel. From right and
left the Moors came hurrying to the rendezvous. By daybreak the whole
force of the Albaycin was under arms, ready to meet in battle the hostile
array on the opposite height of the Alhambra.

To tell what this midnight movement meant we must go back a space in
history. The conquest of Granada was not due to Ferdinand and the
Spaniards alone. It was greatly aided by the dissensions of the Moors, who
were divided into two parties and fought bitterly with each other during
their intervals of truce with the Christians. Ferdinand won in the game
largely by a shrewd playing off of one of these factions against the other
and by taking advantage of the weakness and vacillation of the young king,
whose clandestine entrance to the city we have just seen.

Boabdil el Chico, or Boabdil the Young, as he was called, was the son of
Muley Abul Hassan, against whom he had rebelled, and with such effect
that, after a bloody battle in the streets of the city, the old king was
driven