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I will throw myself with a small force into the mountains, rouse the peasantry, take possession of the passes, and endeavor to give these Spanish cavaliers sufficient entertainment upon the road." It was on a Wednesday that the pranking army of high-mettled warriors issued forth from the ancient gates of Antiquera.
With some difficulty, therefore, he was dissuaded from his inclination, and prevailed upon to await tidings from the army in the frontier city of Antiquera.
For forty days did they continue on like a consuming fire, leaving a smoking and howling waste to mark their course, until, weary with the work of destruction, and having fully sated their revenge for the massacre of the Axarquia, they returned in triumph to the meadows of Antiquera.
Ten days had elapsed since the encampment of the army, yet still the artillery had not arrived. The lombards and other heavy ordnance were left in despair at Antiquera; the rest came groaning slowly through the narrow valleys, which were filled with long trains of artillery and cars laden with munitions.
Such was the army that issued forth from the gates of Antiquera on one of the most extensive "talas," or devastating inroads, that ever laid waste the kingdom of Granada. The army entered the Moorish territory by the way of Alora, destroying all the cornfields, vineyards, and orchards and plantations of olives round that city.
The king immediately sent orders to have the heavy artillery forwarded from Antiquera, and on the 7th of May marched with his army toward Malaga.
A little band of mounted knights was gradually formed, and, the Moors having abandoned the heights to collect the spoils of the slain, this gallant but forlorn squadron was enabled to retreat to Antiquera. This disastrous affair lasted from Thursday evening, throughout Friday, the twenty-first of March, the festival of St. Benedict.
Several were claimed by their owners; others were known to have belonged to noble cavaliers who had been slain or taken prisoners. There were several horses also, richly caparisoned, which had pranced proudly with the unfortunate warriors as they sallied out of Antiquera upon that fatal expedition.
Ali Atar kept the main force of the army together, and turned fiercely from time to time upon his pursuers: he was like a wolf hunted through the country he had often made desolate by his maraudings. The alarm of this invasion had reached the city of Antiquera, where were several of the cavaliers who had escaped from the carnage in the mountains of Malaga.
In a little while there was a chosen force of six thousand horse and twelve thousand foot assembled in Antiquera, many of them the very flower of Spanish chivalry, troops of the established military and religious orders and of the Holy Brotherhood. Precautions had been taken to furnish this army with all things needful for its perilous inroad.
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