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Updated: June 13, 2025
Some of the faint-hearted," adds Antonio Agapida, "looked upon this torment of the elements as a prodigious event, out of the course of nature. In the weakness of their fears they connected it with those troubles which occurred in various places, considering it a portent of some great calamity about to be wrought by the violence of the bloody-handed El Zagal and his fierce adherents."*
El Zagal restrained his own impatience and that of his troops until the night should be advanced and the camp sunk in that heavy sleep from which men are with difficulty awakened, and when awakened prone to be bewildered and dismayed. At length the appointed hour arrived.
The alfaquis and the old men did but increase the distraction of his mind by a variety of counsel, none of which appeared of any avail, for unless Baza were succored it was impossible that it should hold out; and every attempt to succor it had proved ineffectual. El Zagal dismissed his council in despair, and summoned the veteran Mohammed before him.
In the month of February, 1485, El Zagal suddenly appeared before Almeria at the head of a troop of horse. The alfaquis were prepared for his arrival, and the gates were thrown open to him. He entered with his band and galloped to the citadel. The alcayde would have made resistance, but the garrison put him to death and received El Zagal with acclamations.
For five days the combat was kept up: the Christians were nearly exhausted, but were sustained by the cheerings of their stanch old alcayde and the fear of death from El Zagal should they surrender. At length the approach of a powerful force under Don Luis Puerto Carrero relieved them from this fearful peril.
The latter rushed through the apartments of the Alcazar, but he sought in vain for Boabdil. He found the sultana Ayxa la Horra in one of the saloons with Aben Haxig, a younger brother of the monarch, and several Abencerrages, who rallied round them to protect them. "Where is the traitor Boabdil?" exclaimed El Zagal.
On a sudden El Zagal issued out of Guadix with a chosen band, passed rapidly through the mountains which extend behind Granada, and fell like a thunderbolt upon the territories in the neighborhood of Alcala la Real.
He represented to El Zagal the desperate state of affairs and the irretrievable decline of Moorish power in the kingdom of Granada. "Fate," said he, "is against our arms; our ruin is written in the heavens. Remember the prediction of the astrologers at the birth of your nephew Boabdil.
"While the pious king Ferdinand," observes Fray Antonio Agapida, "was humbling himself before the cross and devoutly praying for the destruction of his enemies, that fierce pagan, El Zagal, depending merely on arm of flesh and sword of steel, pursued his diabolical outrages upon the Christians."
When age and infirmity broke the iron sceptre of the king, my claims to the throne were set aside, and my uncle, El Zagal, usurped my birthright.
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