Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/39

15 CONQUEST OF MALAGA. 15 while fortifying an eminence near the city, the chapter king, who was at dinner in his tent, rushed out '. — with no other defensive armour than his cuirass, and, leaping on his horse, charged briskly into the midst of the enemy, and succeeded in rallying his own men. In the midst of the rencontre, how- ever, when he had discharged his lance, he found himself unable to extricate his sword from the scab- bard which hung from the saddle-bow. At this moment he was assaulted by several Moors, and must have been either slain or taken, but for the timely rescue of the marquis of Cadiz, and a brave cavalier, Garcilasso de la Vega, who galloping up to the spot with their attendants, succeeded after a sharp skirmish in beating off the enemy. Ferdi- nand's nobles remonstrated with him on this wan- ton exposure of his person, representing that he could serve them more effectually with his head than his hand. But he answered, that " he could not stop to calculate chances, when his subjects were perilling their lives for his sake ; " a reply, says Pulgar, which endeared him to the whole army. ^ At length, the inhabitants of Velez, seeing the ^^f^|"'^«='" "' ruin impending from the bombardment of the Chris- tians, whose rigorous blockade both by sea and land excluded all hopes of relief from without, 3 L. Marineo, Cosas Memora- the city incorporated into its es- bles, fol. 175. — Vedmar, Anti- cutcheon the figure of a king on guedad de Velez, fol. 150, 151. — horseback, in the act of piercing a Marmol, Rebelion de Moriscos, lib. Moor with his Javelin. Vedmar 1, cap. 14. Antiguedad de Velez, fol. 12. In commemoration of this event,