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Shortly afterward horsemen came galloping up the hill that leads to the main gate of the Alhambra, spreading the alarm that Boabdil had entered the city and possessed himself of the Alcazaba. In the first transports of his rage the old king would have struck the messenger to earth.

At length he seized upon a postern-gate of the Albaycin, that part of the city which had always been in his favor; he passed rapidly through the streets before the populace were aroused from their sleep, and reached in safety the fortress of the Alcazaba. Here he was received into the embraces of his intrepid mother and his favorite wife Morayma.

We visited the Alcazaba after the Generalife, and were very critical, but I must own the supremacy of this prospect. I should not mind owning its supremacy among all the prospects in the world. Meanwhile our shining hotel had begun to thrill with something besides the cold which nightly pierced it from the snowy Sierra.

The wazir had charge of the arms and provisions and the enrolling of the people. Muza was to command the cavalry, to defend the gates, and to take the lead in all sallies and skirmishings. Naim Reduan and Muhammed Aben Zayde were his adjutants. Abdel Kerim Zegri and the other captains were to guard the walls, and the alcaydes of the Alcazaba and of the Red Towers had command of the fortresses.

They held no communion with its trading, gainful inhabitants, and even considered the garrison of the Alcazaba as their inferiors. War was their pursuit and passion; they rejoiced in its turbulent and perilous scenes; and, confident in the strength of the city, and, above all, of their castle, they set at defiance the menace of Christian invasion.

At one end of the city, near the sea, on a high mound, stood the Alcazaba, or citadel, a fortress of great strength.

Two hundred and fifty principal cavaliers, alcaydes, commanders, and hidalgos of generous blood were confined in the alcazaba, or citadel, of Malaga to await their ransom, and five hundred and seventy of the common soldiery were crowded in an enclosure or courtyard of the alcazaba to be sold as slaves.* * Cura de los Palacios.

The queen took up her residence in the Alcazaba, in the apartments of her valiant treasurer, Ruy Lopez, whence she had a view of the whole city, but the king established his quarters in the warrior castle of Gibralfaro. And now came to be considered the disposition of the Moorish prisoners.

"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.

The old king fortified himself in the lofty towers of the Alhambra, as much against his own subjects as against the Christians; while Ayxa, with the zeal of a mother's affection, which waxes warmer and warmer toward her offspring when in adversity, still maintained the standard of Boabdil on the rival fortress of the Alcazaba, and kept his powerful faction alive within the walls of the Albaycin.