so rigorously
searched that they carried off nothing concealed.

Then might be seen old men and helpless women and tender maidens, some
of high birth and gentle condition, passing through the streets, heavily
burdened, toward the Alcazaba. As they left their homes they smote their
breasts and wrung their hands, and raised their weeping eyes to heaven
in anguish; and this is recorded as their plaint: "O Malaga! city so
renowned and beautiful! where now is the strength of thy castle, where
the grandeur of thy towers? Of what avail have been thy mighty walls
for the protection of thy children? Behold them driven from thy pleasant
abodes, doomed to drag out a life of bondage in a foreign land, and to
die far from the home of their infancy! What will become of thy old men
and matrons when their gray hairs shall be no longer reverenced? What
will become of thy maidens, so delicately reared and tenderly cherished,
when reduced to hard and menial servitude? Behold thy once happy
families scattered asunder, never again to be united--sons separated
from their fathers, husbands from their wives, and tender children from
their mothers: they will bewail each other in foreign lands, but their
lamentations will be the scoff of the stranger. O Malaga! city of our
birth! who can behold thy desolation and not shed tears of bitterness?"*

* Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, c. 93.

When Malaga was completely secured a detachment was sent against two
fortresses near the sea, called Mixas and Osuna, which had frequently
harassed the Christian camp. The inhabitants were threatened with the
sword unless they instantly surrendered. They claimed the same terms
that had been granted to Malaga, imagining them to be freedom of person
and security of property. Their claim was granted: they were transported
to Malaga with all their riches, and on arriving there were overwhelmed
with consternation at finding themselves captives. "Ferdinand," observes
Fray Antonio Agapida, "was a man of his word; they were shut up in the
enclosure at the Alcazaba with the people of Malaga and shared their
fate."

The unhappy captives remained thus crowded in the courtyards of the
Alcazaba, like sheep in a fold, until they could be sent by sea and land
to Seville. They were then distributed about in city and country, each
Christian family having one or more to feed and maintain as servants
until the term fixed for the payment of the residue of the ransom should
exp