As to the foot-soldiers, many were killed, many taken
prisoners; the residue escaped to Alcala la Real. When the Moors
came to strip the slain, the wounds of the cavaliers were all found to
be in front.
Such was the catastrophe of this fanatic enterprise. The Moors
vaunted it as a decisive proof of the superior sanctity of their
faith, and extolled their king to the skies when he returned in
triumph to Granada.
As it was satisfactorily shown that this crusade was the
enterprise of an individual and contrary to the express orders of
the king of Castile, the peace of the two kingdoms was not
interrupted. Nay, the Moors evinced a feeling of respect for the valor
of the unfortunate grand master, and readily gave up his body to Don
Alonzo Fernandez de Cordova, who came from Alcala to seek it. The
Christians of the frontier united in paying the last sad honors to his
memory. His body was placed upon a bier, covered with the pennon of
the order of Alcantara; and the broken cross, the emblem of his
confident hopes and fatal disappointment, was borne before it. In this
way his remains were carried back in funeral procession, through the
mountain tract which he had traversed so resolutely. Wherever it
passed, through a town or village, the populace followed, with tears
and lamentations, bewailing him as a valiant knight and a martyr to
the faith. His body was interred in the chapel of the convent of Santa
Maria de Almocovara, and on his sepulchre may still be seen engraven
in quaint and antique Spanish the following testimonial to his
bravery:
HERE LIES ONE WHOSE HEART NEVER KNEW FEAR
(Aqui yaz aquel que par neua cosa nunca eve pavor en seu corazon)
Spanish Romance.
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