r once-happy Malaga and deliver us from these
overwhelming horrors."

Such was the supplication forced from the inhabitants by the extremity
of their sufferings. Hamet listened to the alfaqui without anger, for he
respected the sanctity of his office. His heart too was at that moment
lifted up with a vain confidence. "Yet a few days of patience," said he,
"and all these evils will suddenly have an end. I have been conferring
with this holy man, and find that the time of our deliverance is at
hand. The decrees of fate are inevitable; it is written in the book
of destiny that we shall sally forth and destroy the camp of the
unbelievers, and banquet upon those mountains of grain which are piled
up in the midst of it. So Allah hath promised by the mouth of this his
prophet. Allah Akbar! God is great! Let no man oppose the decrees of
Heaven!"

The citizens bowed with profound reverence, for no true Moslem pretends
to struggle against whatever is written in the book of fate. Ali Dordux,
who had come prepared to champion the city and to brave the ire of
Hamet, humbled himself before this holy man and gave faith to his
prophecies as the revelations of Allah. So the deputies returned to the
citizens, and exhorted them to be of good cheer. "A few days longer,"
said they, "and our sufferings are to terminate. When the white banner
is removed from the tower, then look out for deliverance, for the hour
of sallying forth will have arrived." The people retired to their homes
with sorrowful hearts; they tried in vain to quiet the cries of their
famishing children, and day by day and hour by hour their anxious eyes
were turned to the sacred banner, which still continued to wave on the
tower of Gibralfaro.

CHAPTER LXIII.

HOW HAMET EL ZEGRI SALLIED FORTH WITH THE SACRED BANNER TO ATTACK THE
CHRISTIAN CAMP.

"The Moorish nigromancer," observes the worthy Fray Antonio Agapida,
"remained shut up in a tower of the Gibralfaro devising devilish means
to work mischief and discomfiture upon the Christians. He was daily
consulted by Hamet, who had great faith in those black and magic arts
which he had brought with him from the bosom of heathen Africa."

From the account given of this dervise and his incantations by the
worthy father it would appear that he was an astrologer, and was
studying the stars and endeavoring to calculate the day and hour when a
successful attack might be made upon the Christian camp.

Famine had now incre