Great, on the other hand, was the joy of the Moors when they saw whole legions of Christian warriors brought captive into their towns by rude mountain-peasantry. They thought it the work of Allah in favor of the faithful. But when they recognized among the captives thus dejected and broken down some of the proudest of Christian chivalry; when they saw several of the banners and devices of the noblest houses of Spain, which they had been accustomed to behold in the foremost of the battle, now trailed ignominiously through their streets; when, in short, they witnessed the arrival of the count of Cifuentes, the royal standard-bearer of Spain, with his gallant brother, Don Pedro de Silva, brought prisoners into the gates of Granada,--there were no bounds to their exultation. They thought that the days of their ancient glory were about to return, and that they were to renew their career of triumph over the unbelievers. The Christian historians of the time are sorely perplexed to account for this misfortune, and why so many Christian knights, fighting in the cause of the holy faith, should thus miraculously, as it were, be given captive to a handful of infidel boors, for we are assured that all this rout and destruction was effected by five hundred foot and fifty horse, and those mere mountaineers without science or discipline.* “It was intended,” observes one historiographer, “as a lesson to their confidence and vainglory, overrating their own prowess and thinking that so chosen a band of chivalry had but to appear in the land of the enemy and conquer. It was to teach them that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that God alone giveth the victory.” * Cura de los Palacios.