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Updated: May 26, 2025
He careered, almost without resistance, over those vast campinas or pasture-lands which formed a part of the domains of the duke of Medina Sidonia. In vain the bells were rung and the alarm-fires kindled: the band of Hamet had passed by before any force could be assembled, and was only to be traced, like a hurricane, by the devastation it had made.
The camp was too strong to be forced; they were driven back to the crags of the mountains, whence they defended themselves by showering down darts and stones upon their pursuers. Hamet now lit alarm-fires about the heights: his standard was joined by the neighboring mountaineers and by troops from Malaga.
By his command alarm-fires were lighted on the mountains, signals that the Moors were on the ravage, at sight of which the peasants were accustomed to drive their flocks and herds to places of refuge. He sent couriers also spurring in every direction, summoning all capable of bearing arms to meet him at Castellar.
He had flattered himself that their march had been so rapid as to outstrip intelligence, and that Lucena would be an easy capture, when suddenly he beheld alarm-fires blazing upon the mountains.
The surrounding precipices were lit up by a thousand alarm-fires: every crag and cliff had its flame, by the light of which they beheld their foes bounding from rock to rock and looking more like fiends than mortal men.
Night closed again upon the Christians when they were shut up in a narrow valley traversed by a deep stream and surrounded by precipices which seemed to reach the skies, and on which blazed and flared the alarm-fires. Suddenly a new cry was heard resounding along the valley. "El Zagal! El Zagal!" echoed from cliff to cliff. "What cry is that?" said the master of Santiago.
In the mean time, the alarm-fires gathered together the Moorish mountaineers of all the Serrania, who assembled in great numbers in the city of Monda, about a league from Coin. They made several attempts to enter the besieged town, but in vain: they were each time intercepted and driven back by the Christians, and were reduced to gaze at a distance in despair on the destruction of the place.
The alarm-fires of the preceding night had aroused the country; every man snatched sword and buckler from the wall, and the towns and villages poured forth their warriors to harass the retreating foe.
Every house in the town was in equal bustle, for in these frontier towns every house had its warrior, and the lance and buckler were ever hanging against the wall ready to be snatched down for instant service. Nothing was heard but the din of armorers, the shoeing of steeds, and furbishing up of weapons, and all night long the alarm-fires kept blazing on the mountains.
Having learnt, the evening before, that the Moors had passed the frontiers, he had gathered within his walls all the women and children from the environs, had armed the men, sent couriers in all directions for succor, and had lighted alarm-fires on the mountains.
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