e entreated, therefore, that mercy might be extended to
them, and that they might not be confounded with the guilty.

* MS. Chron. of Valera.

The sovereigns had accepted the presents of Ali Dordux--how could they
then turn a deaf ear to his petition? So they granted a pardon to him
and to forty families which he named, and it was agreed that they should
be protected in their liberties and property, and permitted to reside
in Malaga as mudexares or Moslem vassals, and to follow their customary
pursuits.* All this being arranged, Ali Dordux delivered up twenty of
the principal inhabitants to remain as hostages until the whole city
should be placed in the possession of the Christians.

* Cura de los Palacios, cap. 84.

Don Gutierrez de Cardenas, senior commander of Leon, now entered the
city armed cap-a-pie, on horseback, and took possession in the name of
the Castilian sovereigns. He was followed by his retainers and by the
captains and cavaliers of the army, and in a little while the standards
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.

FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECY OF THE DERVISE.--FATE OF HAMET EL ZEGRI.

No 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."