John, of Austria, 1547-1578; Spain -- History -- Philip II, 1556-1598
The first to fly was the Alcaide Xoaybi, and he went proclaiming
everywhere, to spite Aben-Humeya, that the latter was in treaty with the
Christians to end the war and to give up the Moors, and in proof of this
he showed a wrongly interpreted letter, kept by him at Guejar. They all
believed the evil deeds of Aben-Humeya, which were many, and most of all
a certain Diego Alguacil, a native of Albacete de Ujijar, who owed him a
bitter grudge, because Aben-Humeya had, by evil intrigue, decoyed away a
widowed cousin who was the mistress of Diego Alguacil. The kinglet took
her by force, but she always kept up a correspondence with her cousin,
to whom she told all Aben-Humeya's doings and plans.
Diego Alguacil made use of these advantages, and with a nephew named
Diego de Rojas, and the renegade Diego Lopéz Aben Aboo, a dyer of the
Albaicin, and the Turkish captains Huscein and Carafax, who had come
from Algeria, contrived a plot, which would have been iniquitous had it
not been against such a scoundrel as Aben-Humeya. They forged letters
from him to Aben Aboo, ordering him to kill all the Turks treacherously,
and then they went to Laujar de Andarax, where Aben-Humeya was,
intending to take him and kill him. He, however, had had warning of what
was happening, and decided to fly to Valor at daybreak on the 3rd of
October, but he was kept that night by a festival, and tired by
merry-making, put off the journey until the next day, though the horses
were already saddled. This was his ruin, as with the dawn Diego
Alguacil, Aben Aboo and the others arrived and assaulted the house,
taking him unawares. Aben-Humeya went to the door half dressed, with a
crossbow in his hand, followed by the Moorish widow; but, as this bad
woman saw at a glance what was happening, she clung to him, as if
frightened, but in reality to stop him using his arms or the crossbow,
and to make it easy for the others to capture him. This Aben Aboo and
Diego Alguacil did, tying his hands with an "almaijar" (turban of gauze)
and his legs very tightly with a hempen cord.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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