The temperature was now greatly changed from what the army had experienced in the valley. The wind, sweeping down the icy sides of the mountains, found its way through the harness of the cavaliers and the light covering of the soldiers, benumbing their limbs, and piercing them to the very bone. Great difficulty was experienced in dragging the cannon up the steep heights, and along roads and passes, which, however easily traversed by the light-footed mountaineer, were but ill suited to the movements of an army clad in the heavy panoply of war.
The march was conducted in perfect order, the arquebusiers occupying the van, and the cavalry riding on either flank, while detachments of infantry, the main body of which occupied the centre, were thrown out to the right and left, on the higher grounds along the route of the army, to save it from annoyance from the mountaineers.
On the thirteenth of January, Mondejar entered the narrow defile of Alfajarali, at the farther end of which the motley multitude that had gathered round the standard of Aben-Humeya were already drawn up in battle-array. His right wing rested on the bold side of the sierra; the left was defended by a deep ravine, and his position was strengthened by more than one ambuscade, for which the nature of the ground was eminently favourable.[70] Indeed, ambushes and surprises formed part of the regular strategy of the Moorish warrior, who lost heart if he failed in these,--like the lion, who, if balked in the first spring upon his prey, is said rarely to attempt another.
Putting these wily tactics into practice, the Morisco chief, as soon as the Spaniards were fairly entangled in the defile, without waiting for them to come into order of battle, gave the signal; and his men, starting up from glen, thicket, and ravine, or bursting down the hill-sides like their own winter-torrents, fell at once on the Christians,--front, flank, and rear,--assailing them on every quarter.[71] Astounded by the fiery suddenness of the assault, the rear-guard retreated on the centre, while the arquebusiers in the van were thrown into still greater disorder. For a few moments it seemed as if the panic would become general. But the voice of the leader was heard above the tumult, and by his prompt and sagacious measures he fortunately succeeded in restoring order, and reviving the confidence of his men. He detached one body of cavalry, under his son-in-law, to the support of the rear, and another to the front under the command of his son, Antonio de Mendoza. Both executed their commissions with spirit; and Mendoza, outstripping his companions in the haste with which he galloped to the front, threw himself into the thickest of the fight, where he was struck from his horse by a heavy stone, and was speedily surrounded by the enemy, from whose grasp he was with difficulty, and not till after much hard fighting, rescued by his companions. His friend, Don Alonso Portocarrero, the scion of a noble house in Andalusia, whose sons had always claimed the front of battle against the infidel, was twice wounded by poisoned arrows; for the Moors of the Alpujarras tipped their weapons with a deadly poison distilled from a weed that grew wild among the mountains.[72]