Bodies of troops were also sent to take possession of the mountain-passes by which the supplies for the army had to be brought. The mountains, however, were so steep and rugged, and so full of defiles and lurking-places, that the Moors could sally forth and retreat in perfect security, frequently swooping down upon Christian convoys and bearing off both booty and prisoners to their strongholds. Sometimes the Moors would light fires at night on the sides of the mountains, which would be answered by fires from the watch-towers and fortresses. By these signals they would concert assaults upon the Christian camp, which in consequence was obliged to be continually on the alert. King Ferdinand flattered himself that the manifestation of his force had struck sufficient terror into the city, and that by offers of clemency it might be induced to capitulate. He wrote a letter, therefore, to the commanders, promising, in case of immediate surrender, that all the inhabitants should be permitted to depart with their effects, but threatening them with fire and sword if they persisted in defence. This letter was despatched by a cavalier named Carvajal, who, putting it on the end of a lance, reached it to the Moors on the walls of the city. Abul Cacim Vanegas, son of Reduan, and alcayde of the fortress, replied that the king was too noble and magnanimous to put such a threat in execution, and that he should not surrender, as he knew the artillery could not be brought to the camp, and he was promised succor by the king of Granada. At the same time that he received this reply the king learnt that at the strong town of Comares, upon a height about two leagues distant from the camp, a large number of warriors had assembled from the Axarquia, the same mountains in which the Christian cavaliers had been massacred in the beginning of the war, and that others were daily expected, for this rugged sierra was capable of furnishing fifteen thousand fighting-men. King Ferdinand felt that his army, thus disjoined and enclosed in an enemy’s country, was in a perilous situation, and that the utmost discipline and vigilance were necessary. He put the camp under the strictest regulations, forbidding all gaming, blasphemy, or brawl, and expelling all loose women and their attendant bully ruffians, the usual fomenters of riot and contention among soldiery. He ordered that none should sally forth to skirmish without permission from their commanders; that none should set fire to the woods on the neighboring mountains; and that all word of security given to Moorish places or individuals should be inviolably observed. These regulations were enforced by severe penalties, and had such salutary effect that, though a vast host of various people was collected together, not an opprobrious epithet was heard nor a weapon drawn in quarrel.