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“In the hand of God is the destiny of princes. He alone giveth empire,” piously says an old Arabian chronicler, and goes on with the following story: A Moorish horseman, mounted on a fleet Arabian steed, was one day traversing the mountains which extend between Granada and the frontier of Murcia. He galloped swiftly through the valleys, but paused and gazed cautiously from the summit of every height. A squadron of cavaliers followed warily at a distance. There were fifty lances. The richness of their armor and attire showed them to be warriors of noble rank, and their leader had a lofty and prince-like demeanor.

For two nights and a day the cavalcade made its way through that rugged country, avoiding settled places and choosing the most solitary passes of the mountains. Their hardships were severe, but campaigning was their trade and their horses were of generous spirit. It was midnight when they left the hills and rode through darkness and silence to the city of Granada, under the shadows of whose high walls they passed to the gate of the Albaycin. Here the leader ordered his followers to halt and remain concealed. Taking four or five with him, he advanced to the gate and struck upon it with the handle of his scimitar.

“Who is it knocks at this unseasonable hour of the night?” demanded the warder within.

“Your king,” was the answer. “Open and admit him.”

Opening a wicket, the warder held forth a light and looked at the man without. Recognizing him at a glance, he opened the gate, and the cavalier, who had feared a less favorable reception, rode in with his followers and galloped in haste to the hill of the Albaycin, where the new-comers knocked loudly at the doors of the principal dwellings, bidding their tenants to rise and take arms for their lawful sovereign. The summons was obeyed. Trumpets soon resounded in the streets; the gleam of torches lit the dark avenues and flashed upon naked steel. From right and left the Moors came hurrying to the rendezvous. By daybreak the whole force of the Albaycin was under arms, ready to meet in battle the hostile array on the opposite height of the Alhambra.

To tell what this midnight movement meant we must go back a space in history. The conquest of Granada was not due to Ferdinand and the Spaniards alone. It was greatly aided by the dissensions of the Moors, who were divided into two parties and fought bitterly with each other during their intervals of truce with the Christians. Ferdinand won in the game largely by a shrewd playing off of one of these factions against the other and by taking advantage of the weakness and vacillation of the young king, whose clandestine entrance to the city we have just seen.

Boabdil el Chico, or Boabdil the Young, as he was called, was the son of Muley Abul Hassan, against whom he had rebelled, and with such effect that, after a bloody battle in the streets of the city, the old king was driven without its walls. His tyranny had caused the people to gather round his son.

From that time forward there was dissension and civil war in Granada, and the quarrels of its kings paved the way for the downfall of the state. The country was divided into the two factions of the young and the old kings. In the city the hill of the Albaycin, with its fortress of the Alcazaba, was the stronghold of Boabdil, while the partisans of Abul Hassan dwelt on the height of the Alhambra, the lower town between being the battle-ground of the rival factions.

The succeeding events were many, but must be told in few words. King Boabdil, to show his prowess to the people, marched over the border to attack the city of Lucena. As a result he was himself assailed, his army put to the rout, and himself taken prisoner by the forces of Ferdinand of Aragon. To regain his liberty he acknowledged himself a vassal of the Spanish monarch, to whom he agreed to pay tribute. On his release he made his way to the city of Granada, but his adherents were so violently assailed by those of his father that the streets of the city ran blood, and Boabdil the Unlucky, as he was now called, found it advisable to leave the capital and fix his residence in Almeria, a large and splendid city whose people were devoted to him.