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The very next day, the santon or dervis Hamet Aben Zarrax, who had uttered prophecies and excited commotions on former occasions, suddenly made his appearance. Whence he came no one knew; it was rumored that he had been in the mountains of the Alpujarras and on the coast of Barbary, endeavoring to rouse the Moslems to the relief of Granada.

Having surrendered the last symbol of power, the unfortunate Boabdil continued on toward the Alpujarras, that he might not behold the entrance of the Christians into his capital. His devoted band of cavaliers followed him in gloomy silence; but heavy sighs burst from their bosoms as shouts of joy and strains of triumphant music were borne on the breeze from the victorious army.

They paused not, but proceeded along the banks of the Xenel on the road that leads to the Alpujarras, until they arrived at a hamlet at some distance from the city, where they halted and waited until they should be joined by King Boabdil. The sun had scarcely begun to shed his beams upon the summits of the snowy mountains which rise above Granada when the Christian camp was in motion.

In the mean time the besieged city began to suffer the distress of famine. Its supplies were all cut off; a cavalcade of flocks and herds, and mules laden with money, coming to the relief of the city from the mountains of the Alpujarras , was taken by the Marquis of Cadiz and led in triumph to the camp, in sight of the suffering Moors.

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."

But her boy's head held boy's brains; and Lord Ormont's praise of the splendid creature's nerve when she had to smell powder in Spain, and at bull-fights, and once at a wrecking of their carriage down a gully on the road over the Alpujarras, sent her away subdued, envious, happy to have kissed the cheek of the woman who could inspire it.

It is needless to say that those first called to partake of the mess, as the master of the house, who had been a soldier, called it, were the strange woman and her son. "And what part of the country are you from?" said John Joseph to his guest, as he offered her a slice of a magnificent watermelon, which sparkled like a garnet in the light. "From Treveles, in the Alpujarras," she answered.

The reader does not forget the Gypsies of Granada: "Many of them reside in caves scooped in the sides of the ravines which lead to the higher regions of the Alpujarras, on a skirt of which stands Granada.

'Go without fear, I cried to him, as I came away, 'the weather-vane in your village points for Spain; and don't lose heart, if there should be some reverse, for reverses there must be in war, unless it be by a miracle of God; but many there won't be; and the devil will have little chance to get at the weather-vane of the peak of the Alpujarras, for the one who has charge of it now is an archangel, your patron saint, Michael, and the patron saint of Spain, and he won't neglect his business, and he knows how to keep the devil at a respectful distance!"

Mondejar was driving the rebels in arms in terror before him; tower and town fell in succession into his hands; everywhere his arms were victorious, and only one thing was wanting to bring all opposition to an end,—the capture of Aben-Humeya, the "little king" of the Alpujarras.