At this crisis, Don John, who from his elevated post had watched the impending ruin, called his handful of brave followers around him, and at once threw himself into the midst of the tumult. "What means this, Spaniards?" he exclaimed. "From whom are you flying? Where is the honour of Spain? Have you not John of Austria, your commander, with you? At least, if you retreat, do it like brave men, with your front to the enemy."[241] It was in vain. His entreaties, his menaces, even his blows, which he dealt with the flat of his sabre, were ineffectual to rouse anything like a feeling of shame in the cowardly troops. The efforts of his captains were equally fruitless, though in making them they exposed their lives with a recklessness which cost some of them dear. Figueroa was disabled by a wound in the leg. Quixada was hit by a musket-ball on the left shoulder, and struck from his saddle. Don John, who was near, sprang to his assistance, and placed him in the hands of some troopers, with directions to bear him at once to Caniles. In doing this the young commander himself had a narrow escape; for he was struck on his helmet by a ball, which, however, fortunately glanced off without doing him injury.[242] He was now hurried along by the tide of fugitives, who made no attempt to rally for the distance of half a league, when the enemy ceased his pursuit. Six hundred Spaniards were left dead on the field. A great number threw themselves into the houses, prepared to make good their defence. But they were speedily enveloped by the Moriscoes, the houses were stormed or set on fire, and the inmates perished to a man.[243] Don John, in a letter dated the nineteenth of February, two days after this disgraceful affair, gave an account of it to the king, declaring that the dastardly conduct of the troops exceeded anything he had ever witnessed, or indeed could have believed, had he not seen it with his own eyes. "They have so little heart in the service," he adds, "that no effort that I can make, not even the fear of the galleys or the gibbet, can prevent them from deserting. Would to Heaven I could think that they are moved to this by the desire to return to their families, and not by fear of the enemy."[244] He gave the particulars of Quixada's accident, stating that the surgeons had made six incisions before they could ascertain where the ball, which had penetrated the shoulder, was lodged; and that, with all their efforts, they had as yet been unable to extract it. "I now deeply feel," he says, "how much I have been indebted to his military experience, his diligence, and care and how important his preservation is to the service of your majesty. I trust in God he may be permitted to regain his health, which is now in a critical condition."[245] [Sidenote: DEATH OF QUIXADA.]