As the cavalcade was approaching Granada it chanced to overtake a small body of Moorish soldiers with a convoy of prisoners. It was too late for the soldiers to retire, so they threw themselves on their faces on the earth, ordering their captives to do likewise. Among the prisoners were the three cavaliers whom the princesses had seen from the window of the castle of Salobreña, and they, too proud to obey the order to grovel before their pagan enemy, remained standing. The anger of the royal Mohammed was aroused by this flagrant defiance of his orders, and, drawing his scimitar, he was about to decapitate the unfortunate captives, when the princesses gathered round him and implored mercy for them. The captain of the guard, too, assured him that they could not be injured without great scandal, on account of their high rank, and described to the irate monarch the manner in which these illustrious youths had been taken captive while fighting like lions beneath the royal banner of Spain. Somewhat mollified by these representations, Mohammed sheathed his weapon. "I will spare their lives," he said, "but their rashness must meet with fitting punishment. Let them be taken to the Vermilion Towers and put to labour." In the agitation of the moment the veils of the three princesses had blown aside so that their radiant beauty was revealed. In those romantic times to see was often to love at once, and the three noble cavaliers fell sudden victims to the charms of the royal damsels who pleaded so eloquently for their lives. Singularly enough, each of them was enraptured with a separate beauty; but it would be as impertinent as illogical to ask the reason of this sleight of cunning Dame Nature, who in romance, perhaps, is represented as being more judicious than she really is. The royal cavalcade now pressed onward, and the captives were conducted to their allotted prison in the Vermilion Towers. The residence provided for the princesses was all that imagination could ask and splendour devise. It was situated in a tower somewhat apart from the main palace of the Alhambra, and on one side was cheered by the prospect of a garden beautiful as the first step into paradise, while on the other it overlooked a deep and umbrageous ravine that separated the grounds of the Alhambra from those of the Generalife. But to the beauties of this delightful place the princesses were blind. They languished visibly, and by none was their indisposition remarked so shrewdly as by old Kadiga, who guessed its cause without any great difficulty. Taking pity upon their forlorn condition, she told them that as she was passing the Vermilion Towers on the preceding evening she heard the cavaliers singing after the day's labours to the strains of a guitar, and at the request of the princesses she arranged with their jailer that they should be set to work in the ravine, beneath the windows of the damsels' apartments.