The wary Ferdinand knew the sanguine temperament of the Moors, and hastened to prevent their deriving confidence from the night’s disaster.  At break of day the drums and trumpets sounded to arms, and the Christian army issued from among the smoking ruins of their camp, in shining squadrons, with flaunting banners and bursts of martial melody, as though the preceding night had been a time of high festivity instead of terror.

The Moors had beheld the conflagration with wonder and perplexity.  When the day broke and they looked toward the Christian camp, they saw nothing but a dark smoking mass.  Their scouts came in with the joyful intelligence that the whole camp was a scene of ruin.  Scarce had the tidings spread throughout the city when they beheld the Christian army advancing toward their walls.  They considered it a feint to cover their desperate situation and prepare for a retreat.  Boabdil had one of his impulses of valor—­he determined to take the field in person, and to follow up this signal blow which Allah had inflicted on the enemy.  The Christian army approached close to the city, and were laying waste the gardens and orchards, when Boabdil sallied forth, surrounded by all that was left of the flower and chivalry of Granada.  There was not so much one battle as a variety of battles; every garden and orchard became a scene of deadly contest; every inch of ground was disputed, with an agony of grief and valor, by the Moors; every inch of ground that the Christians advanced they valiantly maintained; but never did they advance with severer fighting or greater loss of blood.

The cavalry of Musa was in every part of the field; wherever it came it gave fresh ardor to the fight.  The Moorish soldier, fainting with heat, fatigue, and wounds, was roused to new life at the approach of Musa; and even he who lay gasping in the agonies of death, turned his face toward him, and faintly uttered cheers and blessings as he passed.  The Christians had by this time gained possession of various towers near the city, from whence they had been annoyed by cross-bows and arquebuses.  The Moors, scattered in various actions, were severely pressed.  Boabdil, at the head of the cavaliers of his guard, displayed the utmost valor, mingling in the fight in various parts of the field, and endeavoring to inspirit the foot soldiers in the combat.  But the Moorish infantry was never to be depended upon.  In the heat of the action a panic seized upon them; they fled, leaving their sovereign exposed with his handful of cavaliers to an overwhelming force.  Boabdil was on the point of falling into the hands of the Christians, when, wheeling round, with his followers, they threw the reins on the necks of their fleet steeds and took refuge by dint of hoof within the walls of the city.