Among the Moslems, on the other hand, there was far less of that unity and confidence which contribute so much to the certainty and ease of victory. The generals of the Andalusians distrusted their troops; the sovereigns suspected each other. It was no secret that public sentiment had been hostile to the enlistment of the Africans, and that their presence was only the last resort of a desperate emergency. The Spanish Arabs regarded the Berbers rather as intruders than as allies, while the intrepid warriors of the Desert looked down with contempt on an effeminate soldiery unpractised in arms, arrayed in the silken vestments formerly allotted to women, who were not strong enough to endure the fatigues of an ordinary campaign, whose courage was doubtful, and who had long since demonstrated their incapacity to even partially recover the prestige or to defend the remains of a once magnificent empire. The defiant seizure of Algeziras had raised the most alarming apprehensions as to the ultimate designs of Yusuf. The ambition of that prince was known in every city of Spain. Moorish traders and spies had brought back from the court of Morocco accounts of menaced invasion, descriptions of fortresses equipped to cover a possible retreat, mysterious hints of a prospective gigantic Hispano-African monarchy. Each Andalusian, as he viewed the swarthy and ferocious legions of the invader, reflected, with terror, that he might even then, by increasing the power of his allies, be indirectly contributing to the subjugation of his country and the enslavement of himself. No one was more disturbed than Motamid. By every device familiar to that superstitious age, he endeavored to read the signs of futurity and, with the aid of means emphatically condemned by his religion as idolatrous, to ascertain the inscrutable will of God. His attendants carefully noted the occurrence of every mysterious omen and augury. The court astrologers were kept busy with gnomon and astrolabe observing the positions of the planets and the propitious or unfavorable indications of the heavens.