Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. III.djvu/332

306 306 AFRICAN EXPEDITION OF XIMENES. PART ramparts ; and the soldiers leaping into the town got . '- — possession of the gates, and threw them open to their comrades. The whole army now rushed in, sweeping every thing before it. Some few of the Moors endeavoured to make head against the tide, but most fled into the houses and mosques for pro- tection. Resistance and flight were alike unavail- ing. No mercy was shown ; no respect for age or sex ; and the soldiery abandoned themselves to all the brutal license and ferocity, which seem to stain religious wars above every other. It was in vain Navarro called them ofl". They returned like blood- hounds to the slaughter, and never slackened, till at last wearied with butchery, and gorged with the food and wine found in the houses, they sunk down to sleep promiscuously in the streets and public squares. '^ Moorish 'pijg ^^J^y^^ wiiich on the preceding morning had shed its rays on Oran, flourishing in all the pride of commercial opulence, and teeming with a free and industrious population, next rose on it a captive city, with its ferocious conquerors stretched in slumber on the heaps of their slaughtered victims. ^^ No less than four thousand Moors were said to have fallen in the battle, and from five to eight thousand ^2 Gomez, De Rebus Gcstis, uhi ^'■^ " Sed tandem somnus ex supra. — Bcrnaldez, Reyes Catoli- lahore etvino ohorluseos oppressit, cos, MS., cap. 218. — Robles, et cruciitis liostium caduveribus Yida de Ximcnez, cap. 22. — Peter tanta securilate ct fiducia iiidormi- Martyr, Opus Kjiist., ul)i supra. — crurit, ut perinulti in Oranis urbis Quinlanilla, Arcliciypo, lib. .S,cap. jdateis ad muilam diem stertue- 19. — Carbajal, Analt's,, MS.jauo riut." Gomez, De Kebus Gestis, 1509. — Oviedo, Quiiicuagenas, fol. 111. MS. — Sandovai, Hist, del Emp. Carlos v., torn. i. p. 15.