Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/472

326 326 WAR OF GRANADA. lART and, as their intrenchments were forced one after .^ '- another, thej disputed every inch of ground with the desperation of men who fought for life, fortune, liberty, all that was most dear to them. The con- test hardly slackened till the close of day, while the kennels literally ran with blood, and every avenue was choked up with the bodies of the slain. At length, however, Spanish valor proved triumphant in every quarter, except where a small and desper- ate remnant of the Moors, having gathered their wives and children around them, retreated as a last resort into a large mosque near the walls of the city, from which they kept up a galling fire on the close ranks of the Christians. The latter, after enduring some loss, succeeded in sheltering them- selves so effectually under a roof or canopy con- structed of their own shields, in the manner prac- tised in war previous to the exclusive use of fire- arms, that they were enabled to approach so near the mosque, as to set fire to its doors; when its ten- ants, menaced with suffocation, made a desperate sally, in which many perished, and the remainder surrendered at discretion. The prisoners thus made were all massacred on the spot, without dis- tinction of sex or age, according to the Saracen accounts. But the Castilian writers make no men- tion of this ; and, as the appetites of the Spaniards were not yet stimulated by that love of carnage, which they afterwards displayed in their American wars, and which was repugnant to the chivalrous spirit with which their contests with the Moslems