A doleful day succeeded. All Granada was a scene of tumult and horror. Drums and trumpets resounded in every part; all business was interrupted; the shops were shut, the doors barricadoed. Armed bands paraded the streets, some shouting for Boabdil, and some for Muley Abul Hassan. When they encountered each other they fought furiously and without mercy; every public square became a scene of battle. The great mass of the lower orders was in favor of Boabdil, but it was a multitude without discipline or lofty spirit: part of the people were regularly armed, but the greater number had sallied forth with the implements of their trade. The troops of the old king, among whom were many cavaliers of pride and valor, soon drove the populace from the squares. They fortified themselves, however, in the streets and lanes, which they barricadoed. They made fortresses of their houses, and fought desperately from the windows and the roofs, and many a warrior of the highest blood of Granada was laid low by plebeian hands and plebeian weapons in this civic brawl.* * Conde, Domin. de los Arabes, p. 4, c. 37. It was impossible that such violent convulsions should last long in the heart of the city. The people soon longed for repose and a return to their peaceful occupations, and the cavaliers detested these conflicts with the multitude, in which were all the horrors of war without its laurels. By the interference of the alfaquis an armistice was at length effected. Boabdil was persuaded that there was no dependence upon the inconstant favor of the multitude, and was prevailed upon to quit a capital where he could only maintain a precarious seat upon his throne by a perpetual and bloody struggle. He fixed his court at the city of Almeria, which was entirely devoted to him, and which at that time vied with Granada in splendor and importance. This compromise of grandeur for tranquillity, however, was sorely against the counsels of his proud-spirited mother, the sultana Ayxa. Granada appeared, in her eyes, the only legitimate seat of dominion, and she observed, with a smile of disdain, that he was not worthy of being called a monarch who was not master of his capital. CHAPTER XXII. FORAY OF THE MOORISH ALCAYDES, AND BATTLE OF LOPERA.