The most important of these various cla.s.ses was that of the janizaries, whose discipline was far from terminating with the school. Indeed, their whole life may be said to have been pa.s.sed in war, or in preparation for it. Forbidden to marry, they had no families to engage their affections, which, as with the monks and friars in Christian countries, were concentrated on their own order, whose prosperity was inseparably connected with that of the state. Proud of the privileges which distinguished them from the rest of the army, they seemed desirous to prove their t.i.tle to them by their thorough discipline, and by their promptness to execute the most dangerous and difficult services. Their post was always the post of danger. It was their proud vaunt, that they had never fled before an enemy. Clad in their flowing robes, so little suited to the warrior, armed with the arquebuse and the scymitar,--in their hands more than a match for the pike or sword of the European,--with the heron"s plume waving above their heads, their dense array might ever be seen bearing down in the thickest of the fight; and more than once, when the fate of the empire trembled in the balance, it was this invincible corps that turned the scale, and by their intrepid conduct decided the fortune of the day. Gathering fresh reputation with age, so long as their discipline remained unimpaired, they were a match for the best soldiers of Europe. But in time this admirable organization experienced a change. One sultan allowed them to marry; another, to bring their sons into the corps; a third opened the ranks to Turks as well as Christians; until, forfeiting their peculiar character, the janizaries became confounded with the militia of the empire. These changes occurred in the time of Philip the Second; but their consequences were not fully unfolded till the following century.[1270]
It was fortunate for the Turks, considering the unlimited power lodged in the hands of their rulers, that these should have so often been possessed of the courage and capacity for using it for the advancement of the nation. From Othman the First, the founder of the dynasty, to Solyman the Magnificent, the contemporary of Philip, the Turkish throne was filled by a succession of able princes, who, bred to war, were every year enlarging the boundaries of the empire, and adding to its resources. By the middle of the sixteenth century, besides their vast possessions in Asia, they held the eastern portions of Africa. In Europe, together with the countries at this day acknowledging their sceptre, they were masters of Greece; and Solyman, overrunning Transylvania and Hungary, had twice carried his victorious banners up to the walls of Vienna. The battle-ground of the Cross and the Crescent was transferred from the west to the east of Europe; and Germany in the sixteenth century became what Spain and the Pyrenees had been in the eighth, the bulwark of Christendom.
Nor was the power of Turkey on the sea less formidable than on the land.
Her fleet rode undisputed mistress of the Levant; for Venice, warned by the memorable defeat at Prevesa, in 1538, and by the loss of Cyprus and other territories, hardly ventured to renew the contest. That wily republic found that it was safer to trust to diplomacy than to arms, in her dealings with the Ottomans.
The Turkish navy, sweeping over the Mediterranean, combined with the corsairs of the Barbary coast,--who, to some extent, owed allegiance to the Porte,--and made frequent descents on the coasts of Italy and Spain, committing worse ravages than those of the hurricane. From these ravages France only was exempt; for her princes, with an unscrupulous policy which caused general scandal in Christendom, by an alliance with the Turks, protected her territories somewhat at the expense of her honor.
The northern coast of Africa, at this time, was occupied by various races, who, however they may have differed in other respects, all united in obedience to the Koran. Among them was a large infusion of Moors descended from the Arab tribes who had once occupied the south of Spain, and who, on its reconquest by the Christians, had fled that country rather than renounce the religion of their fathers. Many even of the Moors then living were among the victims of this religious persecution; and they looked with longing eyes on the beautiful land of their inheritance, and with feelings of unquenchable hatred on the Spaniards who had deprived them of it.
The African sh.o.r.e was studded with towns,--some of them, like Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, having a large extent of territory adjacent,--which owned the sway of some Moslem chief, who ruled them in sovereign state, or, it might be, acknowledging, for the sake of protection, a qualified allegiance to the sultan. These rude chiefs, profiting by their maritime position, followed the dreadful trade of the corsair. Issuing from their strongholds, they fell on the unprotected merchantmen, or, descending on the opposite coasts of Andalusia and Valencia, sacked the villages, and swept off the wretched inhabitants into slavery.
The Castilian government did what it could for the protection of its subjects. Fortified posts were established along the sh.o.r.es.
Watch-towers were raised on the heights, to give notice of the approach of an enemy. A fleet of galleys, kept constantly on duty, rode off the coasts to intercept the corsairs. The war was occasionally carried into the enemy"s country. Expeditions were fitted out, to sweep the Barbary sh.o.r.es, or to batter down the strongholds of the pirates. Other states, whose territories bordered on the Mediterranean, joined in these expeditions; among them Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Sicily,--the two last the dependencies of Spain,--and above all Genoa, whose hardy seamen did good service in these maritime wars. To these should be added the Knights of St. John, whose little island of Malta, with its iron defences, boldly bidding defiance to the enemy, was thrown into the very jaws, as it were, of the African coast. Pledged by their vows to perpetual war with the infidel, these brave knights, thus stationed on the outposts of Christendom, were the first to sound the alarm of invasion, as they were the foremost to repel it.
[Sidenote: AFRICAN CORSAIRS.]
The Mediterranean, in that day, presented a very different spectacle from what it shows at present,--swarming, as it does, with the commerce of many a distant land, and its sh.o.r.es glittering with towns and villages, that echo to the sounds of peaceful and protected industry.
Long tracts of deserted territory might then be seen on its borders, with the blackened ruins of many a hamlet, proclaiming too plainly the recent presence of the corsair. The condition of the peasantry of the south of Spain, in that day, was not unlike that of our New England ancestors, whose rural labors might, at any time, be broken by the warwhoop of the savage, as he burst on the peaceful settlement, sweeping off its wretched inmates--those whom he did not ma.s.sacre--to captivity in the wilderness. The trader, instead of pushing out to sea, crept timidly along the sh.o.r.e, under the protecting wings of its fortresses, fearful lest the fierce enemy might dart on him unawares, and bear him off to the dungeons of Africa. Or, if he ventured out into the open deep, it was under a convoy of well-armed galleys, or, armed to the teeth himself, prepared for war.
Scarcely a day pa.s.sed without some conflict between Christian and Moslem on the Mediterranean waters. Not unfrequently, instead of a Moor, the command was intrusted to some Christian renegade, who, having renounced his country and his religion for the roving life of a corsair, felt, like most apostates, a keener hatred than even its natural enemies for the land he had abjured.[1271] In these encounters, there were often displayed, on both sides, such deeds of heroism as, had they been performed on a wider theatre of action, would have covered the actors with immortal glory. By this perpetual warfare a race of hardy and experienced seamen was formed, in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean; and more than one name rose to eminence for nautical science as well as valor, with which it would not be easy to find a parallel in other quarters of Christendom. Such were the Dorias of Genoa,--a family to whom the ocean seemed their native element; and whose brilliant achievements on its waters, through successive generations, shed an undying l.u.s.tre on the arms of the republic.
The corsair"s life was full of maritime adventure. Many a tale of tragic interest was told of his exploits, and many a sad recital of the sufferings of the Christian captive, tugging at the oar, or pining in the dungeons of Tripoli and Algiers. Such tales formed the burden of the popular minstrelsy of the period, as well as of more elegant literature,--the drama, and romantic fiction. But fact was stranger than fiction. It would have been difficult to exaggerate the number of the Christian captives, or the amount of their sufferings. On the conquest of Tunis by Charles the Fifth, in 1535, ten thousand of these unhappy persons, as we are a.s.sured, walked forth from its dungeons, and knelt, with tears of grat.i.tude and joy, at the feet of their liberator.
Charitable a.s.sociations were formed in Spain, for the sole purpose of raising funds to ransom the Barbary prisoners. But the ransom demanded was frequently exorbitant, and the efforts of these benevolent fraternities made but a feeble impression on the whole number of captives.
Thus the war between the Cross and the Crescent was still carried on along the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, when the day of the Crusades was past in most of the other quarters of Christendom. The existence of the Spaniard--as I have often had occasion to remark--was one long crusade; and in the sixteenth century he was still doing battle with the infidel, as stoutly as in the heroic days of the Cid. The furious contests with the petty pirates of Barbary engendered in his bosom feelings of even keener hostility than that which grew up in his contests with the Arabs, where there was no skulking, predatory foe, but army was openly arrayed against army, and they fought for the sovereignty of the Peninsula. The feeling of religious hatred rekindled by the Moors of Africa extended in some degree to the Morisco population, who still occupied those territories on the southern borders of the monarchy which had belonged to their ancestors, the Spanish Arabs. This feeling was increased by the suspicion, not altogether without foundation, of a secret correspondence between the Moriscos and their brethren on the Barbary coast. These mingled sentiments of hatred and suspicion sharpened the sword of persecution, and led to most disastrous consequences, which before long will be unfolded to the reader.
Among the African corsairs was one by the name of Dragut, distinguished for his daring spirit, and the pestilent activity with which he pursued the commerce of the Spaniards. In early life he had been made prisoner by Andrew Doria; and the four years during which he was chained to the oar in the galleys of Genoa did not serve to mitigate the feelings of hatred which he had always borne to the Christians. On the recovery of his freedom, he resumed his desperate trade of a corsair with renewed activity. Having made himself master of Tripoli, he issued out, with his galleys, from that stronghold, fell on the defenceless merchantman, ravaged the coasts, engaged boldly in fight with the Christian squadrons, and made his name as terrible, throughout the Mediterranean, as that of Barbarossa had been in the time of Charles the Fifth.
The people of the southern provinces, smarting under their sufferings, had more than once besought Philip to send an expedition against Tripoli, and, if possible, break up this den of thieves, and rid the Mediterranean of the formidable corsair. But Philip, who was in the midst of his victorious campaigns against the French, had neither the leisure nor the resources, at that time, for such an enterprise. In the spring of 1559, however, he gave orders to the duke of Medina Celi, viceroy of Sicily, to fit out an armament for the purpose, to obtain the cooperation of the Italian states, and to take command of the expedition.
A worse choice for the command could not have been made; and this not so much from the duke"s inexperience; for an apprenticeship to the sea was not deemed necessary to form a naval commander, in an age when men pa.s.sed indifferently from the land-service to the sea-service. But, with the exception of personal courage, the duke of Medina Celi seems to have possessed none of the qualities requisite in a commander, whether by land or sea.
The different Italian powers--Tuscany, Rome, Naples, Sicily, Genoa--all furnished their respective quotas. John Andrew Doria, nephew of the great Andrew, and worthy of the name he bore, had command of the galleys of the republic. To these was added the reinforcement of the grand-master of Malta. The whole fleet amounted to more than a hundred sail, fifty-four of which were galleys; by much the larger part being furnished by Spain and her Italian provinces. Fourteen thousand troops embarked on board the squadron. So much time was consumed in preparation, that the armament was not got ready for sea till late in October, 1559,--too late for acting with advantage on the stormy African coast.
[Sidenote: EXPEDITION AGAINST TRIPOLI.]
This did not deter the viceroy, who, at the head of the combined fleet, sailed out of the port of Syracuse in November. But the elements conspired against this ill-starred expedition. Scarcely had the squadron left the port, when it was a.s.sailed by a tempest, which scattered the vessels, disabled some, and did serious damage to others. To add to the calamity, an epidemic broke out among the men, caused by the bad quality of the provisions furnished by the Genoese contractors. In his distress, the duke of Medina Celi put in at the island of Malta. He met with a hospitable reception from the grand-master; for hospitality was one of the obligations of the order. Fall two mouths elapsed before the duke was in a condition to reembark, with his force reduced nearly one third by disease and death.
Meanwhile Dragut, having ascertained the object of the expedition, had made every effort to put Tripoli in a posture of defence. At the same time he sent to Constantinople, to solicit the aid of Solyman. The Spanish admiral, in the crippled condition of his armament, determined to postpone the attack on Tripoli to another time, and to direct his operations for the present against the island of Jerbah, or, as it was called by the Spaniards, Gelves. This place, situated scarcely a league from the African sh.o.r.e, in the neighborhood of Tripoli, had long been known as a nest of pirates, who did great mischief in the Mediterranean.
It was a place of ill-omen to the Spaniards, whose arms had met there with a memorable reverse in the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic.[1272]
The duke, however, landing with his whole force, experienced little resistance from the Moors, and soon made himself master of the place. It was defended by a fortress fallen much out of repair; and, as the Spanish commander proposed to leave a garrison there, he set about restoring the fortifications, or rather constructing new ones. In this work the whole army actively engaged; but nearly two months were consumed before it was finished. The fortress was then mounted with artillery, and provided with ammunition, and whatever was necessary for its defence. Finally, a garrison was introduced into it, and the command intrusted to a gallant officer, Don Alonzo de Sande.
Scarcely had these arrangements been completed, and the troops prepared to reembark, when advices reached the duke that a large Turkish fleet was on its way from Constantinople to the a.s.sistance of Dragut. The Spanish admiral called a council of war on board of his ship. Opinions were divided. Some, among whom was Doria, considering the crippled condition of their squadron, were for making the best of their way back to Sicily. Others, regarding this as a course unworthy of Spaniards, were for standing out to sea, and giving battle to the enemy. The duke, perplexed by the opposite opinions, did not come to a decision. He was soon spared the necessity of it by the sight of the Ottoman fleet, under full sail, bearing rapidly down on him. It consisted of eighty-six galleys, each carrying a hundred janizaries; and it was commanded by the Turkish admiral, Piali, a name long dreaded in the Mediterranean.
At the sight of this formidable armament, the Christians were seized with a panic. They scarcely offered any resistance to the enemy; who, dashing into the midst of them, sent his broadsides to the right and left, sinking some of the ships, disabling others, while those out of reach of his guns shamefully sought safety in flight. Seventeen of the combined squadron were sunk; four-and-twenty, more or less injured, struck their colors; a few succeeded in regaining the island, and took shelter under the guns of the fortress. Medina Celi and Doria were among those who thus made their way to the sh.o.r.e; and under cover of the darkness, on the following night, they effected their escape in a frigate, pa.s.sing, as by a miracle, without notice, through the enemy"s fleet, and thus securing their retreat to Sicily. Never was there a victory more humiliating to the vanquished, or one which reflected less glory on the victors.[1273]
Before embarking, the duke ordered Sande to defend the place to the last extremity, promising him speedy a.s.sistance. The garrison, thus left to carry on the contest with the whole Turkish army, amounted to about five thousand men; its original strength being considerably augmented by the fugitives from the fleet.
On the following morning, Piali landed with his whole force, and instantly proceeded to open trenches before the citadel. When he had established his batteries of cannon, he sent a summons to the garrison to surrender. Sande returned for answer, that, "if the place were won, it would not be, like Piali"s late victory, without bloodshed." The Turkish commander waited no longer, but opened a lively cannonade on the ramparts, which he continued for some days, till a practicable breach was made. He then ordered a general a.s.sault. The janizaries rushed forward with their usual impetuosity, under a murderous discharge of artillery and small arms from the fortress as well as from the shipping, which was so situated as to support the fire of the besieged. Nothing daunted, the brave Moslems pushed forward over the bodies of their fallen comrades; and, scrambling across the ditch, the leading files succeeded in throwing themselves into the breach. But here they met with a spirit as determined as their own, from the iron array of warriors, armed with pike and arquebuse, who, with Sande at their head, formed a wall as impenetrable as the ramparts of the fortress. The contest was now carried on man against man, and in a s.p.a.ce too narrow to allow the enemy to profit by his superior numbers. The besieged, meanwhile, from the battlements, hurled down missiles of every description on the heads of the a.s.sailants. The struggle lasted for some hours. But Spanish valor triumphed in the end, and the enemy was driven back in disorder across the moat, while his rear files were sorely galled, in his retreat, by the incessant fire of the fortress.
Incensed by the failure of his attack and the slaughter of his brave followers, Piali thought it prudent to wait till he should be reinforced by the arrival of Dragut with a fresh supply of men and of battering ordnance. The besieged profited by the interval to repair their works, and when Dragut appeared they were nearly as well prepared for the contest as before.
On the corsair"s arrival, Piali, provided with a heavier battering train, opened a more effective fire on the citadel. The works soon gave way, and the Turkish commander promptly returned to the a.s.sault. It was conducted with the same spirit, was met with the same desperate courage, and ended, like the former, in the total discomfiture of the a.s.sailants, who withdrew, leaving the fosse choked up with the bodies of their slaughtered comrades. Again and again the attack was renewed, by an enemy whose numbers allowed the storming parties to relieve one another, while the breaches made by an unintermitting cannonade gave incessant occupation to the besieged in repairing them. Fortunately, the number of the latter enabled them to perform this difficult service; and though many were disabled, and there were few who were not wounded, they still continued to stand to their posts, with the same spirit as on the first day of the siege.
[Sidenote: DESPERATE DEFENCE OF GELVES.]
But the amount of the garrison, so serviceable in this point of view, was fatal in another. The fortress had been provisioned with reference to a much smaller force. The increased number of mouths was thus doing the work of the enemy. Notwithstanding the strictest economy, there was already a scarcity of provisions; and, at the end of six weeks, the garrison was left entirely without food. The water too had failed. A soldier had communicated to the Spanish commander an ingenious process for distilling fresh water from salt.[1274] This afforded a most important supply, though in a very limited quant.i.ty. But the wood which furnished the fuel necessary for the process was at length exhausted, and to hunger was added the intolerable misery of thirst.
Thus reduced to extremity, the brave Sande was not reduced to despair.
Calling his men together, he told them that liberty was of more value than life. Anything was better than to surrender to such an enemy. And he proposed to them to sally from the fortress that very night, and cut their way, if possible, through the Turkish army, or fall in the attempt. The Spaniards heartily responded to the call of their heroic leader. They felt, like him, that the doom of slavery was more terrible than death.
That night, or rather two hours before dawn on the twenty-ninth of June, Don Alvaro sallied out of the fortress, at the head of all those who were capable of bearing arms. But they amounted to scarcely more than a thousand men, so greatly had the garrison been diminished by death, or disabled by famine and disease. Under cover of the darkness, they succeeded in pa.s.sing through the triple row of intrenchments, without alarming the slumbering enemy. At length, roused by the cries of their sentinels, the Turks sprang to their arms, and, gathering in dark ma.s.ses round the Christians, presented an impenetrable barrier to their advance. The contest now became furious; but it was short. The heroic little band were too much enfeebled by their long fatigues, and by the total want of food for the last two days, to make head against the overwhelming number of their a.s.sailants. Many fell under the Turkish scymitars, and the rest, after a fierce struggle, were forced back on the path by which they had come, and took refuge in the fort. Their dauntless leader, refusing to yield, succeeded in cutting his way through the enemy, and threw himself into one of the vessels in the port. Here he was speedily followed by such a throng as threatened to sink the bark, and made resistance hopeless. Yielding up his sword, therefore, he was taken prisoner, and led off in triumph to the tent of the Turkish commander.
On the same day the remainder of the garrison, unable to endure another a.s.sault, surrendered at discretion. Piali had now accomplished the object of the expedition; and, having reestablished the Moorish authorities in possession of the place, he embarked, with his whole army, for Constantinople. The tidings of his victory had preceded him; and, as he proudly sailed up the Bosphorus, he was greeted with thunders of artillery from the seraglio and the heights surrounding the capital.
First came the Turkish galleys, in beautiful order, with the banners taken from the Christians ignominiously trailing behind them through the water. Then followed their prizes,--the seventeen vessels taken in the action,--the battered condition of which formed a striking contrast to that of their conquerors. But the prize greater than all was the prisoners, amounting to nearly four thousand, who, manacled like so many malefactors, were speedily landed, and driven through the streets, amidst the shouts and hootings of the populace, to the slave-market of Constantinople. A few only, of the higher order, were reserved for ransom. Among them were Don Alvaro de Sande and a son of Medina Celi.
The young n.o.bleman did not long survive his captivity. Don Alvaro recovered his freedom, and lived to take ample vengeance for all he had suffered on his conquerors.[1275]
Such was the end of the disastrous expedition against Tripoli, which left a stain on the Spanish arms that even the brave conduct of the garrison at Gelves could not wholly wipe away. The Moors were greatly elated by the discomfiture of their enemies; and the Spaniards were filled with a proportionate degree of despondency, as they reflected to what extent their coasts and their commerce would be exposed to the predatory incursions of the corsairs. Philip was especially anxious in regard to the safety of his possessions on the African coast. The two princ.i.p.al of these were Oran and Mazarquivir, situated not far to the west of Algiers. They were the conquests of Cardinal Ximenes. The former place was won by an expedition fitted out at his own expense. The enterprises of this remarkable man were conducted on a gigantic scale, which might seem better suited to the revenues of princes. Of the two places Oran was the more considerable; yet hardly more important than Mazarquivir, which possessed an excellent harbor,--a thing of rare occurrence on the Barbary sh.o.r.e. Both had been cherished with care by the Castilian government, and by no monarch more than by Philip the Second, who perfectly understood the importance of these possessions, both for the advantages of a commodious harbor, and for the means they gave him of bridling the audacity of the African cruisers.[1276]
In 1562, the king ordered a squadron of four and twenty galleys, under the command of Don Juan de Mendoza, to be got ready in the port of Malaga, to carry supplies to the African colonies. But in crossing the Mediterranean, the ships were a.s.sailed by a furious tempest, which compelled them to take refuge in the little port of Herradura. The fury of the storm, however, continued to increase; and the vessels, while riding at anchor, dashed against one another with such violence, that many of them foundered, and others, parting their cables, drifted on sh.o.r.e, which was covered far and wide with the dismal wrecks. Two or three only, standing out to sea, and braving the hurricane on the deep, were so fortunate as to escape. By this frightful shipwreck, four thousand men, including their commander, were swallowed up by the waves.
The southern provinces were filled with consternation at this new calamity, coming so soon after the defeat at Gelves. It seemed as if the hand of Providence was lifted against them in their wars with the Mussulmans.[1277]
[Sidenote: WAR ON THE BARBARY COAST.]
The Barbary Moors, encouraged by the losses of the Spanish navy, thought this a favorable time for recovering their ancient possessions on the coast. Ha.s.sem, the dey of Algiers, in particular, a warlike prince, who had been engaged in more than one successful encounter with the Christians, set on foot an expedition against the territories of Oran and Mazarquivir. The government of these places was intrusted, at that time, to Don Alonzo de Cordova, count of Alcaudete. In this post he had succeeded his father, a gallant soldier, who, five years before, had been slain in battle by this very Ha.s.sem, the lord of Algiers. Eight thousand Spaniards had fallen with him on the field, or had been made prisoners of war.[1278] Such were the sad auspices under which the reign of Philip the Second began, in his wars with the Moslems.[1279]
Oran, at this time, was garrisoned by seventeen hundred men; and twenty-seven pieces of artillery were mounted on its walls. Its fortifications were in good repair; but it was in no condition to stand a siege by so formidable a force as that which Ha.s.sem was mustering in Algiers. The count of Alcaudete, the governor, a soldier worthy of the ill.u.s.trious stock from which he sprang, lost no time in placing both Oran and Mazarquivir in the best state of defence which his means allowed, and in acquainting Philip with the peril in which he stood.
Meanwhile, the Algerine chief was going briskly forward with his preparations. Besides his own va.s.sals, he summoned to his aid the petty princes of the neighboring country; and in a short time he had a.s.sembled a host in which Moors, Arabs, and Turks were promiscuously mingled, and which, in the various estimates of the Spaniards, rose from fifty to a hundred thousand men.
Little reliance can be placed on the numerical estimates of the Spaniards in their wars with the infidel. The gross exaggeration of the numbers brought by the enemy into the field, and the numbers he was sure to leave there, with the corresponding diminution of their own in both particulars, would seem to infer that, in these religious wars, they thought some miracle was necessary to show that Heaven was on their side, and the greater the miracle the greater the glory. This hyperbolical tone, characteristic of the old Spaniards, and said to have been imported from the East, is particularly visible in the accounts of their struggles with the Spanish Arabs, where large ma.s.ses were brought into the field on both sides, and where the reports of a battle took indeed the coloring of an Arabian tale. The same taint of exaggeration, though somewhat mitigated, continued to a much later period, and may be observed in the reports of the contests with the Moslems, whether Turks or Moors, in the sixteenth century.
On the fifteenth of March, 1563, Ha.s.sem left Algiers, at the head of his somewhat miscellaneous array, sending his battering train of artillery round by water, to meet him at the port of Mazarquivir. He proposed to begin by the siege of this place, which, while it would afford a convenient harbor for his navy, would, by its commanding position, facilitate the conquest of Oran. Leaving a strong body of men, therefore, for the investment of the latter, he continued his march on Mazarquivir, situated at only two leagues" distance. The defence of this place was intrusted by Alcaudete to his brother, Don Martin de Cordova.
Its fortifications were in good condition, and garnished with near thirty pieces of artillery. It was garrisoned by five hundred men, was well provided with ammunition, and was victualled for a two months"
siege. It was also protected by a detached fort, called St. Michael, built by the count of Alcaudete, and, from its commanding position, now destined to be the first object of attack. The fort was occupied by a few hundred Spaniards, who, as it was of great moment to gain time for the arrival of succors from Spain, were ordered to maintain it to the last extremity.
Ha.s.sem was not long in opening trenches. Impatient, however, of the delay of his fleet, which was detained by the weather, he determined not to wait for the artillery, but to attempt to carry the fort by escalade.
In this attempt, though conducted with spirit, he met with so decided a repulse, that he abandoned the project of further operations till the arrival of his ships. No sooner did this take place, than, landing his heavy guns, he got them into position as speedily as possible, and opened a lively cannonade on the walls of the fortress. The walls were of no great strength. A breach was speedily made; and Ha.s.sem gave orders for the a.s.sault.
No sooner was the signal given, than Moor, Turk, Arab,--the various races in whose veins glowed the hot blood of the south,--sprang impetuously forward. In vain the leading files, as they came on, were swept away by the artillery of the fortress, while the guns of Mazarquivir did equal execution on their flank. The tide rushed on, with an enthusiasm that overleaped every obstacle. Each man seemed emulous of his comrade, as if desirous to show the superiority of his own tribe or race. The ditch, choked up with the _debris_ of the rampart and the fascines that had been thrown into it, was speedily crossed; and while some sprang fearlessly into the breach, others endeavored to scale the walls. But everywhere they were met by men as fresh for action as themselves, and possessed of a spirit as intrepid. The battle raged along the parapet, and in the breach, where the struggle was deadliest.
It was the old battle, so often fought, of the Crescent and the Cross, the fiery African and the cool, indomitable European. Arquebuse and pike, sabre and scymitar, clashed fearfully against each other; while high above the din rose the war-cries of "Allah!" and "St. Jago!"
showing the creeds and countries of the combatants.
At one time it seemed as if the enthusiasm of the Moslems would prevail; and twice the standard of the Crescent was planted on the walls. But it was speedily torn down by the garrison, and the bold adventurers who had planted it thrown headlong into the moat.
Meanwhile an incessant fire of musketry was kept up from the ramparts; and hand-grenades, mingled with barrels of burning pitch, were hurled down on the heads of the a.s.sailants, whose confusion was increased, as their sight was blinded by the clouds of smoke which rose from the fascines that had taken fire in the ditch. But although their efforts began to slacken, they were soon encouraged by fresh detachments sent to their support by Ha.s.sem, and the fight was renewed with redoubled fury.
These efforts, however, proved equally ineffectual. The Moors were driven back on all points; and, giving way before the invincible courage of the Spaniards, they withdrew in such disorder across the fosse, now bridged over with the bodies of the slain, that, if the garrison had been strong enough in numbers, they might have followed the foe to his trenches, and inflicted such a blow as would at once have terminated the siege. As it was, the loss of the enemy was fearful; while that of the Spaniards, screened by their defences, was comparatively light. Yet a hundred lives of the former, so overwhelming were their numbers, were of less account than a single life among the latter. The heads of fifty Turks, who had fallen in the breach or in the ditch, were cut off, as we are told, by the garrison, and sent, as the grisly trophies of their victory, to Oran;[1280] showing the feelings of bitter hatred--perhaps of fear--with which this people was regarded by the Christians.