The Moors, waked from their sleep, fought desperately to preserve the town itself from the fate of the citadel, throwing up barriers in the streets, and maintaining a heavy cross-bow fire upon their assailants, whenever they tried to emerge from the shelter of the gates. It seemed for a time as if the Christian forces could make no headway; and some of the captains counselled that the citadel and all the houses within reach should be fired and the order for retreat should be sounded. To this the Marquis replied with a stern negative. They had not made such a splendid capture merely to reduce it to ashes; and he promised his soldiers that once the city was taken he would allow them to put it to the sack and keep what booty fell to their swords. Encouraged by this prospect his troops made a breach in the wall of the citadel on the side towards Alhama, and swarming through this opening and the main gateway in great numbers, they succeeded in beating back their enemies and destroying the barriers. [Illustration: SPANISH CROSSBOWMAN, FIFTEENTH CENTURY FROM “SPANISH ARMS AND ARMOUR” REPRODUCED BY COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR, MR. A. F. CALVERT ] _Ay de mi Alhama!_ “Woe is me Alhama!” was the cry in Granada, when wounded fugitives brought news of the fate that had overtaken their town. Muley Abul Hacen said little, but, putting himself at the head of some 3000 horse and 50,000 infantry, advanced on Alhama to exact vengeance on the Christians who had so daringly crossed his frontier. As he approached the walls, his troops uttered groans of mingled fury and horror, for the ground lay strewn with the dead bodies of their countrymen, thrown out by those within the walls to the mercy of vultures and pariah dogs. The Marquis had made what preparations for defence he could, but he had begun to realize that his situation was rather desperate. Not only was he separated from his country by a wide stretch of hostile territory, from which he could expect no provisions, but the food stored within the town had been much of it squandered or destroyed during the sack. Large quantities of grain had been deliberately burned by the Castilian soldiery who, hearing it rumoured that they were about to retreat, determined to leave nothing intact for their enemies. In the weeks that followed, when the forces of Muley Hacen ranged themselves round the walls, and his engineers turned aside the stream that supplied Alhama with water, the Christians, fighting by day and night, half-starved and tortured with thirst, were to pay dearly for their recklessness.