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Updated: June 27, 2025
Behind this van-guard followed a great cavalgada of cattle, and in the rear marched the king with the main force of his little army. It was near the middle of a sultry summer day when they approached Castellar. De Vargas was on the watch, and beheld, by an immense cloud of dust, that they were descending one of the heights of that wild and broken country.
These careless cavaliers were in fact the knights of Calatrava returning from their foray. A part of their force had passed on with the cavalgada; ninety of the principal cavaliers had halted to refresh themselves in this valley. El Zagal smiled with ferocious joy when he heard of their negligent security. "Here will be trophies," said he, "to grace our entrance into Granada."
He chose fifty of his bravest horsemen, and, making a circuit, took his post secretly in a narrow glen opening into a defile between two rocky heights through which the Moors had to pass. It was his intention to suffer the van-guard and the cavalgada to pass, and to fall upon the rear.
The Christian cavaliers were urging their cavalgada of cattle and sheep up a mountain as fast as their own weariness would permit, when, looking back, they beheld a great cloud of dust, and presently descried the turbaned host hot upon their traces.
Having collected everything in haste and arranged his cavalgada, the count urged his way with all speed for Alcala la Real, lest he should be pursued and overtaken by the Moors of Granada. As he wound up the steep ascent to his mountain-city the inhabitants poured forth to meet him with shouts of joy.
Las Casas asserts, however, that Ojeda departed either to some remote district of Hispaniola, or to the island of Porto Rico, where he made up what he called his Cavalgada, or drove of slaves; carrying off numbers of the unhappy natives, whom he sold in the slave-market of Cadiz. Conspiracy of Guevara and Moxica.
The sentinels descended in all haste and flung open the gates. The long cavalgada defiled into the courts of the castle, which were soon filled with bleating and lowing flocks and herds, with neighing and stamping steeds, and with fierce-looking Moors from the mountains.
The warriors of the frontier assembled, but El Zagal was already far on his return through the mountains, and he re-entered the gates of Guadix in triumph, his army laden with Christian spoil and conducting an immense cavalgada.
When the cavalgada arrived near the castle, a Moorish cavalier of noble and commanding mien and splendid attire rode up to the foot of the tower and entreated admittance. He stated that they were returning with rich booty from a foray into the lands of the Christians, but that the enemy was on their traces, and they feared to be overtaken before they could reach Granada.
Its supplies were all cut off; a cavalgada of flocks and herds and mules laden with money, coming to the relief of the city from the mountains of the Alpuxarras, was taken by the marques of Cadiz and led in triumph to the camp in sight of the suffering Moors.
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