Nor was the alarm less that was felt by the Moriscoes in the city, as it was certainly better founded,--for the Moriscoes were the weaker party of the two. They knew the apprehensions entertained of them by the Christians, and that, when men have the power to relieve themselves of their fears, they are not apt to be very scrupulous as to the means of doing so. They were afraid to venture into the streets by day, and at night they barricaded their houses as in a time of siege.[56] They well knew that a single act of imprudence on their part, or even the merest accident, might bring the Spaniards upon them, and lead to a general massacre. They were like the traveller who sees the avalanche trembling above him, which the least jar of elements, or his own unwary movements, may dislodge from its slippery basis, and bring down in ruin on his head. Thus the two races, inhabitants of the same city, were like two hostile camps, looking on each other with watchful and malignant eyes, and ready at any moment to come into deadly conflict. In this stage of things the Moriscoes, anxious to allay the apprehensions of the Spaniards, were profuse in their professions of loyalty, and in their assurances that there was neither concert nor sympathy between them and their countrymen in the Alpujarras. The government, to give still greater confidence to the Christians, freely distributed arms among them, thus enabling them, as far as possible, to provide for their own security. The inhabitants enrolled themselves in companies. The citizen was speedily converted into the soldier, and every man, of whatever trade or profession,--the mechanic, the merchant, the lawyer,--took his turn of military service. Even the advocates, when attending the courts of justice, appeared with their weapons by their side.[57] [Sidenote: MUSTER OF TROOPS.]