held, many of which were reversed, and
suborners punished in proportion to their guilt.*

* Pulgar, part 3, c. 100.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

HOW KING FERDINAND INVADED THE EASTERN SIDE OF THE KINGDOM OF GRANADA,
AND HOW HE WAS RECEIVED BY EL ZAGAL.

"Muley Abdallah el Zagal," says the venerable Jesuit father Pedro
Abarca, "was the most venomous Mahometan in all Morisma;" and the worthy
Fray Antonio Agapida most devoutly echoes his opinion. "Certainly,"
adds the latter, "none ever opposed a more heathenish and diabolical
obstinacy to the holy inroads of the cross and sword."

El Zagal felt that it was necessary to do something to quicken his
popularity with the people, and that nothing was more effectual than a
successful inroad. The Moors loved the stirring call to arms and a wild
foray among the mountains, and delighted more in a hasty spoil, wrested
with hard fighting from the Christians, than in all the steady and
certain gains secured by peaceful traffic.

There reigned at this time a careless security along the frontier of
Jaen. The alcaydes of the Christian fortresses were confident of the
friendship of Boabdil el Chico, and they fancied his uncle too distant
and too much engrossed by his own perplexities to think of molesting
them. On a sudden El Zagal issued out of Guadix with a chosen band,
passed rapidly through the mountains which extend behind Granada, and
fell like a thunderbolt upon the territories in the neighborhood of
Alcala la Real. Before the alarm could be spread and the frontier roused
he had made a wide career of destruction through the country, sacking
and burning villages, sweeping off flocks and herds, and carrying away
captives. The warriors of the frontier assembled, but El Zagal was
already far on his return through the mountains, and he re-entered the
gates of Guadix in triumph, his army laden with Christian spoil and
conducting an immense cavalgada. Such was one of El Zagal's preparatives
for the expected invasion of the Christian king, exciting the warlike
spirit of his people, and gaining for himself a transient popularity.

King Ferdinand assembled his army at Murcia in the spring of 1488. He
left that city on the fifth of June with a flying camp of four thousand
horse and fourteen thousand foot. The marques of Cadiz led the van,
followed by the adelantado of Murcia. The army entered the Moorish
frontier by the sea-coast, spreading terror through the land: wherever
it appea