Having razed the walls of Guajaras to the ground, Mondejar returned with his blood-stained laurels to his head-quarters at Orgiba. Tower and town had gone down before him. On every side his arms had proved victorious. But one thing was wanting--the capture of Aben-Humeya, the "little king" of the Alpujarras. So long as he lived, the insurrection, now smothered, might be rekindled at any time. He had taken refuge, it was known, in the wilds of the Sierra Nevada, where, as the captain-general wrote, he was wandering from rock to rock with only a handful of followers.[95] Mondejar sent two detachments of soldiers into the sierra, to discover his haunts, if possible, and seize upon his person. The commander of one of these parties, named Maldonado, ascertained that Aben-Humeya, secreting himself among the fastnesses of the mountains by day, would steal forth at night, and repair, with a few of his followers, to a place called Mecina, on the skirts of the sierra. Here he found shelter in the house of his kinsman, Aben-Aboo, one of those Moriscoes who, after the affair of Jubíles, had obtained a safe-conduct from Mondejar. Having gained this intelligence, and learned the situation of the house, the Spanish captain marched, with his little band of two hundred soldiers, in that direction. He made his approach with the greatest secrecy. Travelling by night, he reached undiscovered the neighbourhood of Aben-Aboo's residence. Advancing under cover of the darkness, he had arrived within gunshot of the dwelling, when, at this critical moment, all his precautions were defeated by the carelessness of one of his company, whose arquebuse was accidentally discharged. The report, reverberating from the hills in the silence of night, roused the inmates of the house, who slept as the wearied mariner sleeps when his ship is in danger of foundering. One of them, El Zaguer, the uncle of Aben-Humeya, and the person who had been mainly instrumental in securing him his crown--a crown of thorns--was the first roused, and, springing to the window, he threw himself down, though the height was considerable, and made his way to the mountains.