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Such was the fate of Aben-Aboo, the last of a line of great monarchs, and one of the best of them all; a man of lofty spirit, temperate appetites, and courageous endurance, who, had he lived in more prosperous days, might have ruled in the royal halls of Cordova with a renown equal to that of the most famous caliph of his race.
One of the few insurgent prisoners who escaped death at the hands of the Spanish executioners revealed the hiding-place of the fugitive king, and named the two persons on whom Aben-Aboo most relied, his secretary, Abou Amer, and a Moorish captain named El Senix.
He found El Senix surrounded by several of his friends, and sternly demanded of him the purpose of his interview with Barredo. Senix, confused by the accusation, faltered out that he had simply been seeking to obtain an amnesty for him. Aben-Aboo listened with a face of scorn, and, turning on his heel with the word "treachery," walked back to the mouth of the cave.
Aben-Aboo, the last of this royal race, was given in death a triumphal entrance to Granada, as if he were one whom the Spaniards delighted to honor. The corpse was set astride on a mule, being supported by a wooden frame, which lay hidden beneath flowing robes. On one side rode Barredo; on the other the murderer El Senix bore the scimitar and arquebuse of the dead prince.
As it proved, however, the heroic Aben-Aboo did not die, but lived to play a leading part in the war. With kindly treatment of the Moriscos he would probably have given no more trouble, but the Spanish proved utterly merciless, their soldiers raging through the mountains, and committing the foulest acts of outrage and rapine. In Granada a frightful deed was committed.
Surrounded by a strong body-guard, he led a voluptuous life, and struck down without mercy those whom he feared, no less than three hundred and fifty persons falling victims to his jealousy or revenge. His cruelty and injustice at length led to a plot for his death, and his brief reign ended in assassination, his kinsman, Aben-Aboo, being chosen as his successor.
Yet the march of the narrative is rapid and unchecked, from the first outbreak of the revolt, when Aben-Farax, with a handful of followers, facing the darkness of night and the blinding snow, penetrated into the streets of Granada, shouting the cry so long unheard in air that had once been so familiar with its sound, "There is no God but Allah, and Mahomet is the prophet of God!" through all the strange and terrible vicissitudes of the deadly struggle that ensued, the frightful massacres, the wild guerrilla battles, the fiery onslaughts of the Spanish chivalry, the stealthy surprises of the Moorish mountaineers, down to the complete suppression of the insurrection, the removal of the defeated race, the overthrow and death of Aben-Aboo, "the little king of the Alpujarras," and the ghastly triumph in which his dead body, clothed in the robes of royalty and supported upright on a horse, was led into the capital where his ancestors had once reigned in peaceful splendor, after which the head was cut off and set up in a cage above the wall, "the face turned towards his native hills, which he had loved so well."
An interview soon after took place between the Moor and Barredo, the Spanish agent, some intimation of which came to the ears of Aben-Aboo. The king at once sought a cavern in the neighborhood where El Senix was secreted, and, leaving his followers outside, imprudently entered alone.
The captain of one of these parties learned from a traitor that the fugitive prince remained hidden in the mountains only during the day, finding shelter at night in the house of a kinsman, Aben-Aboo, on the skirts of the sierras. Learning the situation of this mansion, the Spanish captain led his men with the greatest secrecy towards it.
We cannot describe, even in epitome, the varied course of this sanguinary war. As might well have been expected, the greater force of the Spaniards gradually prevailed, and the autumn of 1570 found the insurgents almost everywhere subdued. Only Aben-Aboo, the "little king," remained in arms, a force of four hundred men being all that were left to him of his recent army.
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