Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/490

344 344 WAR OF GRANADA. I. PART of which, penetrating the joints of his harness beneath his sword-arm, as he was in the act of raising it, inflicted on him a mortal wound, of which he exjDired in a few hours, says an old chronicler, after having confessed, and performed the last duties of a good and faithful Christian. Although scarcely twenty-four years of age, this cavalier had given proofs of such signal prowess, that he was esteemed one of the best knights of Castile ; and his death threw a general gloom over the army.* Ferdinand now became convinced of the unsuita- bleness of a position, which neither admitted of easy communication between the different quarters of his own camp, nor enabled him to intercept the sup- plies daily passing into that of his enemy. Oth- er inconveniences also pressed on him. His men were so badly provided with the necessary utensils for dressing their food, that they were obliged either to devour it raw, or only half cooked. Most of them being new recruits, unaccustomed to the privations of war, and many exhausted by a weari- some length of march before joining the army, they began openly to murmur, and even to desert in great numbers. Ferdinand therefore resolved to fall back as far as Rio Frio, and await there patient- ly the arrival of such fresh reinforcements as might put him in condition to enforce a more rigorous blockade. ^ Itades y Andrada, Las Tres ii. lib. 1, cap. 7. — Conde, Domi Ordenos,fol. 80, 81. — L. Marineo, naciou de los Arabes, torn. iii. p. Cosas Mcmnrables, fol. 173. — Le- 21 J. — Carbajal, Anales, MS., ano brija, Rerum Gestarum Decades, 1482.