A thousand voices echoed the sound; showers of arrows poured from the incumbent heights; and, from every opening in the hills, Moorish infantry rushed upon the astonished victors, while the cavalry from the wood charged them in the rear.
No Spaniard returned to tell the story. Larach received a Moorish garrison; and the crescent of Mohammed was flying on its walls, when a little row-boat, manned by a few Christian merchants who escaped during the confusion in the town, made the best of its way to reach the Spanish coast.
The acclamations which followed the return of Aben Humeya to his camp before Ceuta, were heard in the Spanish fortress; and, soon after, there was a rumor amongst the Jews in the town, of what had befallen Larach.
Santa Cruz was confounded when he found the report true. He had received so insufficient an accession to his force, that it appeared mere mockery. No artillery was sent, for which he had particularly dispatched his messenger; and he perceived a spirit of contradiction to him, in all the orders which the war-minister gave out for the prosecution of the African campaign. Besides this, the Count de Patinos came direct from Seville, with a peremptory command from the Queen, for Santa Cruz to join her there.
An exchange of brides between the royal heirs of Spain and Portugal was the ostensible reason for the journey of the Court towards the Spanish frontiers; but the real motive, was a desire of the King's to view, with his own eyes, the lines he was planning at San Roque, to shut out the fortress of Gibraltar from all communication with his people; and to facilitate his operations on that place, in any future siege. Previous to his visiting this scene of anticipated glory, he became indisposed, and the court halted at Seville. His illness wore so dangerous an aspect, Isabella became alarmed; and thought it prudent to know personally from Santa Cruz, what was likely to be the persistance of Ripperda, before she should disarm herself, by dispatching those troops to Africa, which the death of Philip might render necessary to the maintenance of her son's claims elsewhere.
The small detachment which had been granted, arrived under the command of Don Joseph de Pinel;--Don Ferdinand d'Osorio was on his staff; and the young soldier eagerly joined his father, where he longed to obliterate the memory of his youthful follies, by a conduct worthy of his hopes. In Lindisfarne, he had regarded the peculiar endowments of Louis de Montemar with jealousy and dislike, till the ingenuous character of their possessor compelled him to esteem the object of his antipathy. But he only envied him, as far as he believed those admirable qualities had made an impression on the heart his own wished to attach. When Alice acknowledged her love, this jealousy was no more; and with it vanished his dislike of her cousin.