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He celebrated this occasion in the most practical manner possible: a stop was put to the indiscriminate massacre of the garrison, and five hundred of the Spaniards were captured alive; it was their dreary fate to pull down entirely the tower of Pedro Navarro, which they had defended so gallantly and to utilise the material in making a causeway from the Peñon to the shore.

Upon this occasion he was present as the representative of Dragut, and urged, on behalf of his master, that the time was not yet ripe for an attack on Malta. First, he contended, it was necessary to recapture the Goletta and the Peñon de Velez, and to defeat the Moors of Tunis, who were feudatories of the Spanish king and avowed enemies of the Ottoman Empire.

This terrace, which was surrounded by a parapet some four feet high, commanded a view of the city straggling up the hillside to eastward, from the harbour and of the island at the end of the mole which had been so laboriously built by the labour of Christian slaves from the stones of the ruined fortress the Penon, which Kheyr-ed-Din Barbarossa had wrested from the Spaniards.

The Moors there had endured for seven years the embargo of the Spaniards; they had seen their fregatas rotting before their eyes, and never dared to mend them; they had viewed many a rich prize sail by, and never so much as ventured a mile out to sea to look her over: for there were keen eyes and straight shots in the Peñon which commanded the bay, and King Ferdinand the Catholic held a firm hand over the tribute which his banished subjects had to pay him for his condescension in ruining them.

In command of the Peñon d'Alger, as it was called by the Spaniards, was a valiant and veteran cavalier, by name Martin de Vargas. For twenty years, as we have said, the gold-and-crimson banner of Spain had floated from its crenulated bastions; since the days of Pedro Navarro it had held its own against all comers.

Reconnoissances were made up to within gun-shot of El Penon, while engineers were seeking a route by the south side of Lake Chalco to flank the city, and come upon it from the south and south-west. A way was found around the lake, and by the 18th of August troops were in St. Augustin Tlalpam, a town about eleven miles due south from the plaza of the capital. Between St.

It was therefore in contemplation to turn Penon by forcing Mexicalcinzo, although the ground was difficult and the batteries known to be numerous. This route, you will observe, is to the north and right of the lakes. The reconnoissances of the engineers were consequently directed to this end.

Not only had he crushed out the incipient mutiny of Venalcadi and taken his life, but he had consolidated his power by the taking of the Peñon d'Alger.

The high ridge of El Penon, manned by nearly the whole of Santa Anna's army, blocked the passage between the lakes, and deep morasses added to the difficulties of approach. To the south, however, on the far side of Lake Chalco, lay a more level tract, but accessible only by roads which the Mexicans deemed impracticable.

He had screamed under the cruel cut, but none had heeded him. Lest the punishment should be repeated, he had thrown all his weight into the next strokes of the oar, until by the time the Penon was reached the sweat was running down his body and his heart was thudding against his ribs.