“while some of the prisoners were actually guilty, all were guilty in intention.” The affair was regarded as a suggestive warning, and in the future the insurgents did not receive or expect assistance from their friends in Granada. Once more the flames of war were kindled in the sierras, and the scenes of indiscriminate butchery were resumed. The power of Ibn-Ommeyah, strengthened by thousands of desperate men fleeing from persecution, by the monfis, by the corsairs, and by numbers of savage adventurers from the northern coast of Africa, now became more formidable than ever. That power he exercised with ferocious severity. The discipline of his troops was improved. Marauding parties of Christians from the principal cities were surprised and cut to pieces. Prominent officials who had ventured to advocate surrender were promptly executed for treason. The discouraging and hitherto hopeless task of enlisting the sympathy and aid of the Mohammedan princes of Fez and Algiers was resumed, but with no better prospect of success than before. Philip, fully informed of the incapacity and mutual distrust of those hitherto charged with the government of Granada, now determined to commit the subjection of the rebels to a general whose rank and talents would command the obedience and check the insubordination of the ill-disciplined bands composing the bulk of the Spanish army. Don John of Austria, his half-brother, the natural son of Charles V., a youth whose opportunities had as yet given little indication of the military genius he possessed, but in whom discerning eyes had already perceived the existence of those brilliant qualities subsequently displayed with such lustre at Lepanto, was assigned to the command.