The Story of Don John of Austria by Luis Coloma (e books for reading txt) 📖

This act made him King, and he named officers and gave appointments, among others that of Chief Magistrate to Farax Abenfarax and that of Captain-General to his uncle D. Fernando el Zaguer, called in Arabic Aben Jauher. He sent his ambassadors to the Kings of Algiers and Tunis, notifying his election and asking for brotherly help: to which they replied with great promises and demonstrations, offering to send galleys with men, arms, and provisions, which should be known by their red-dyed sails.

Meanwhile the month of December had arrived and Farax Abenfarax went secretly to Granada, leaving the sedition prepared behind him, like a train of powder which can be fired in a second when the moment arrives.

But the covetousness and ill-contained hatred of the Moors took fire before the time. On the 28th of December seven clerks of the Courts of Ujijar of Albacete set out for Granada guided by a Moor; they were going to spend Christmas with their wives and were taking a large quantity of fowls, chickens, honey, fruits and money.

Entering a vineyard at the boundary of Poqueira, they met, lying in wait for them, a band of armed Moors, who spoiled them of everything and put them to a cruel death. One called Pedro de Medina escaped with the guide, and they went to raise the alarm in Albacete de Orgivar. The same day five squires of Motril, also going to Granada with Christmas presents, met with a similar fate. That night there arrived to sleep at Cadiar the captain Diego de Herrera with his brother-in-law Diego de Hutado Docampo, of the order of Santiago, and fifty soldiers who were carrying arquebuses for the fort of Adra. D. Fernando el Zaguer, Captain-General and uncle of the new King, was hiding in the place, and he arranged with the other conspirators this blackest treason. He made all his neighbours give hospitality to one soldier, and at midnight, at a preconcerted signal, beheaded them all, from the captain downwards, so that only three remained to return to Adra.

These tidings did not alarm the authorities of Granada as they should have done; on the other hand, the Moors of the Albaicin mistrusting them, and fearing lest the hasty rashness of their brothers in the country should have compromised their plans, hastened to send messengers everywhere to say that nothing was to be done without fresh orders from the Albaicin, which was, according to them, the head-quarters.

But the impetuous Farax was not of this mind, and thinking, on the contrary, that everything would be lost if the events were not pushed forward, decided to enter the Albaicin that same night and either rouse the Moors or compromise them.

He then recruited as best he could 180 men from the nearest villages, and with them went round Granada, defying the cold and the snow which fell that night, the 25th of December, a Saturday, the first day of Christmas.

Punctually at twelve o'clock he reached the gate of Guadix, which was in the wall of the Albaicin; breaking down a mud wall, closed by a small door, with pikes and implements that they had taken by force from some mills on the Darro, they entered the town and went straight to his house, joining the parish church of St. Elizabeth, leaving his people to guard the door, wearing coloured Turkish caps and over them white gauze head-dresses, so that they might appear to be Turks.

Farax summoned the principal leaders of the rebellion there and tried to persuade them of the necessity of rising as one man that same night; but they of the Albaicin, false and disloyal even to their own brothers, thinking that enough had already been done to frighten the Christians without further exposing their lives or properties, excused themselves on the score of lack of time and of men, as of the 8000 men who were to accompany him he had only brought 180.

Then Farax, in a fury and mad with rage, insulted them, and, two hours before dawn, assembled his people and with horns, drums and "dulzainos," went through all the streets of the Albaicin, giving mournful cries. They carried two unfurled flags, between which went Farax Abenfarax, a lighted candle in his hand, the white Turkish head-dress stained and the thick, unkempt beard covered with fresh gore. He was small, fat, with an enormous stomach and such long, powerful arms that they seemed deformed. The sight of him certainly inspired terror in the flickering light of the candle; when he stopped from time to time he threw back his enormous head, turned up his bloodshot eyes and cried in Arabic, in a hoarse and mournful voice, "There is no God but the one God, and Mahomet is his prophet. All Moors who wish to revenge the injuries which Christians have done to their law and persons will be revenged by joining this banner, because the King of Algiers and the Cherif, whom God exalt, favour us and have sent all these people and those who are waiting for us up there."

And all the rest answered in a chorus, "Well! Well! Come! Come! as our hour has arrived and all the land of the Moors has risen."

Nobody, however, responded to the call, nor did a single door or window open, nor was any noise heard, as if the quarter was a real city of the dead. Only, they say, an old man shouted to them from a housetop, "Brothers! Go with God, you are few and come out of season."

They reached the square of Bib-el-Bonut, where was the house of the Jesuits, brought there by the Archbishop D. Pedro Guerrero, and called by name for the famous Padre Albotodo, who was of Moorish origin, insulting him and calling him a renegade dog, who, being the son of Moors, had made himself the alfaqui of the Christians, and as they could not break the door, which was strong and well barred, they contented themselves with destroying a wooden cross which was placed over it.

Now the bells of Salvador began to sound the alarm, because the Canon Horozo, who lived at the back of the sacristy, had got in by a hidden door and was ringing them. Farax then returned to the slope by which the tower of the Aceituno is reached, and from there made another proclamation; and as nobody flocked here either, he began to insult those of the Albaicin, crying, "Dogs! Cowards! You have deceived the people and do not wish to fulfil your promise." And with this outburst he left, as dawn had come, and was lost in the distance amid the tempest, like the coming and going of the threatening storm which discharges itself elsewhere.

Next day the hypocritical Moors of the Albaicin descended to the Alhambra and begged the Marqués de Mondejar to help and protect them against the "monfies" who the night before had come to their quarter inciting them to rebel, and putting to the test their loyalty to religion and the King, endangering their lives and property. The Marqués gave more credit to their words than they deserved, and these bad men remained satisfied that they had unchained the storm without risk to themselves. In truth the storm was afterwards let loose, fierce and terrible, as few other in history.

In less than a fortnight the Moors of Farax had burned more than 300 churches, destroying their images, profaning the Blessed Sacrament, and killing more than 4000 Christians, men, women and children, putting them to such dreadful deaths and refined tortures that they find no parallels in the annals of the martyrs. And it was a great marvel and glory that not one of these victims apostatised, but all died with the name of our Lord and His Holy Mother on their lips; which so exasperated these true Mahomedans that to avoid these saintly cries, which sounded as blasphemies to their impious ears, they filled the victims' mouths with gunpowder and lighted it. The renegade Farax Abenfarax ordered these cruelties, and the new King Aben-Humeya took such advantage of them, that in a short time he found himself master of more than 300 villages in which he proclaimed Mahomedanism; the leader of more than 20,000 men who acclaimed him King, and having within his reach the port of Almeira, which, as in other times Gibraltar, could well be the key of all Spain.

Then Philip II really grasped the situation, and to stifle the rebellion and do away with the rivalry between the Marquéses de Mondejar and de los Vélez, so dangerous before such formidable enemies, he sent his brother D. John of Austria to Granada.

D. John of Austria arrived on the 12th of April, 1568, at Hiznaleuz, where he halted to arrange his solemn entry on the next day into Granada, which was only five leagues off. He was accompanied by a great number of gentlemen, who formed his suite, and at the head of them was Luis Quijada, placed at D. John's side by the King, as adviser and counsellor. The Duque de Sesa, who also had received the King's orders to help D. John, in the same way as Luis Quijada, was to follow in a few days. The same day the Marqués de Mondejar came, with many captains and kinsmen, to visit D. John; he stayed the night at Hiznaleuz to report about the state of the war, and went back early in the morning to Granada, to fill his post in the solemn reception.

The King had written very minute details to the President, D. Pedro Deza, notifying even how many of the officials of the Courts and Chapter were to go to meet his brother. But the King could not regulate the enthusiasm of the neighbours, or the joy of the troops, some of whom had become slack through the indolence of the Marqués de Mondejar, and others discontented through the harshness and severity of the Marqués de los Vélez. So there was universal hope and joy that day in Granada, and all went to meet the new leader through the fields of the Vega, which were as fresh and as full of sunshine and flowers as were their hopes.

The first to set out was the Conde de Tendilla, eldest son of Mondejar, and he reached the village of Alboloto, a league and a half from Granada; with him were 200 men, 100 of the troop of Tello Gonzalo de Aguilar, and 100 of his own, whose lieutenant was Gonzalo Chacón, shortly afterwards the hero of a certain noisy adventure in the capital. The latter were all finely turned out in Moorish costume, the others wearing crimson silk and satin in the Spanish fashion, and all well armed with cuirasses, helmets, shields and lances, as if they wished to show by their dress that it was a day of rejoicing though a time of war. In the same manner came D. John and his men; he wore a breastplate, shoulder-piece, and gorget of burnished steel, garnished with golden nails, "cuxotes" or wide breeches of cloth of silver and gold, over mulberry-coloured silk, caught in by strings of pearls; crimson stockings, high white leather boots with golden spurs, cuffs and ruff of rich Flemish point, and a high hat of cut velvet with a tuft of feathers, fastened with a magnificent jewel of emeralds; on his breast hung the Golden Fleece, and on his left arm he wore a crimson cockade, the badge of his command, which was afterwards changed for a flowing red sash. They met at Alboloto and exchanged compliments, and together returned to Granada, forming a brilliant squadron. First came D. John of Austria between Luis Quijada and the Conde de Miranda, behind them followed the gentlemen and the troops. Meanwhile, at the Royal Hospital, outside the gates, were waiting the President D. Pedro Deza, the Archbishop, and the Corregidor; the first had brought four judges and the magistrates; the second four canons and the dignitaries of the Chapter; and the Corregidor four aldermen and their deputies.

These were those specified by the King in his letter to D. Pedro Deza, but the entire nobility of the town, the principal citizens and the whole neighbourhood were also assembled, without anyone being able or wishing to stop them. The Moors of the Albaicin, discarding their own dress for that prescribed by the much-discussed decree, came from all parts, mixing with their neighbours, making false sounds of joy and gladness, which, according to the subsequent declaration of some, were mingled with curses under their breath on D. John and the Christians in Arabic. The crowd stretched from the gate of Elvira to the stream of Beyro, where the reception was to take place; in the plain of this name were drawn up all the infantry, which formed a body of 10,000 men, the Marqués de Mondejar at their head. When D. John came in sight, the President and the Archbishop pressed forward