CHAPTER LXV

Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada

by Washington Irving

CHAPTER LXV, CHRONICLE OF THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA by Washington Irving

FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECY OF THE DERVISE.--FATE OF HAMET
EL ZEGRI.


No sooner was the city delivered up than the wretched inhabitants
implored permission to purchase bread for themselves and their
children from the heaps of grain which they had so often gazed
at wistfully from their walls. Their prayer was granted, and they
issued forth with the famished eagerness of starving men. It was
piteous to behold the struggles of those unhappy people as they
contended who first should have their necessities relieved.

"Thus," says the pious Fray Antonio Agapida,--"thus are the
predictions of false prophets sometimes permitted to be verified,
but always to the confusion of those who trust in them; for the
words of the Moorish nigromancer came to pass that the people
of Malaga should eat of those heaps of bread, but they ate in
humiliation and defeat and with sorrow and bitterness of heart."

Dark and fierce were the feelings of Hamet el Zegri as he looked
down from the castle of Gibralfaro and beheld the Christian legions
pouring into the city and the standard of the cross supplanting the
crescent on the citadel. "The people of Malaga," said he, "have
trusted to a man of trade, and he has trafficked them away; but let
us not suffer ourselves to be bound hand and foot and delivered up
as part of his bargain. We have yet strong walls around us and
trusty weapons in our hands. Let us fight until buried beneath the
last tumbling tower of Gibralfaro, or, rushing down from among its
ruins, carry havoc among the unbelievers as they throng the streets
of Malaga."

The fierceness of the Gomeres, however, was broken. They could
have died in the breach had their castle been assailed, but the slow
advances of famine subdued their strength without rousing their
passions, and sapped the force of both soul and body. They were
almost unanimous for a surrender.

It was a hard struggle for the proud spirit of Hamet to bow itself
to ask for terms. Still, he trusted that the valor of his defence
would gain him respect in the eyes of a chivalrous foe. "Ali,"
said he, "has negotiated like a merchant; I will capitulate as a
soldier." He sent a herald, therefore, to Ferdinand, offering to
yield up his castle, but demanding a separate treaty.[15] The
Castilian sovereign made a laconic and stern reply: "He shall
receive no terms but such as have been granted to the community
of Malaga."

For two days Hamet el Zegri remained brooding in his castle after
the city was in possession of the Christians; at length the clamors
of his followers compelled him to surrender. When the remnant of
this fierce African garrison descended from their cragged fortress,
they were so worn by watchfulness, famine, and battle, yet carried
such a lurking fury in their eyes, that they looked more like fiends
than men. They were all condemned to slavery, excepting Ibrahim
Zenete. The instance of clemency which he had shown in refraining
to harm the Spanish striplings on the last sally from Malaga won him
favorable terms. It was cited as a magnanimous act by the Spanish
cavaliers, and all admitted that, though a Moor in blood, he
possessed the Christian heart of a Castilian hidalgo.*

*Cura de los Palacios, cap. 84.


As to Hamet el Zegri, on being asked what moved him to such hardened
obstinacy, he replied, "When I undertook my command, I pledged
myself to fight in defence of my faith, my city, and my sovereign
until slain or made prisoner; and, depend upon it, had I had men
to stand by me, I should have died fighting, instead of thus tamely
surrendering myself without a weapon in my hand."

"Such," says the pious Fray Antonio Agapida, "was the diabolical
hatred and stiff-necked opposition of this infidel to our holy cause.
But he was justly served by our most Catholic and high-minded
sovereign for his pertinacious defence of the city, for Ferdinand
ordered that he should be loaded with chains and thrown into a
dungeon." He was subsequently retained in rigorous confinement
at Carmona.*

*Pulgar, part 3, cap. 93; Pietro Martyr, lib. 1, cap. 69; Alcantara,
Hist. Granada, vol. 4, c. 18.