There were seven suburbs and as many gates, and 166 castellated towers. Azataff was the Moorish caliph who held it, as brave a knight and chivalric a prince as ever drew blade.
At the mouth of the Guadalquivir, by the white shores of Cadiz, he held his fleet, and his vassals and troops were with him in the Alcazar. From the Patio de las Banderas floated his flag, a black crescent and a star on a yellow ground, and his turbaned body-guard thronged the walls.
Fernando fixed his camp on the low hills over Sancti Ponce. In such a world of flats as surround Seville any height is valuable, and he seized it. As the eye ranges afar, these olive-planted hills appear paltry and monotonous, but they command the city. At their base winds the Guadalquivir in many a graceful bend, otherwise the land is unprotected to the sea.
Not only did Fernando fix his camp scientifically, but he was expert enough to understand that to succeed he must block the river. A fleet of Castilian boats intercepted the Moorish vessels at the mouth of the Guadalquivir at Cadiz, and stopped all supplies.
Such were the dispositions of the Castilian king; and as the siege drew on, and the Christian host gazed down upon the walls, great encouragement came to them from the visible interposition of the Virgin in many notable visions and miracles.
One day as Don Fernando stands at the entrance of the royal tent, casting those prominent eyes of his across the plains, and counting by the number of outposts in how many days he may hope to plant the flag of Castile upon the Giralda tower, rising so tall and graceful before him, he beholds a Christian knight with a companion and an esquire riding by the bank of the river below, carelessly as a man who takes the air on a fine summer’s day, and loiters on the way the better to enjoy it. Lightly the knight carries his lance in rest upon his thigh. His vizor is raised over a bright young face. At his side hangs his sword, held by a golden chain; on his arm flutters a scarf striped red and blue, and the same colours shine radiant in the sunshine on the plume which nods from his helmet.
“Now, who is this young fool,” cries Fernando in a rage, “who dares ride forth into the enemy’s camp as if he were the herald of a tournament? Does he think that I allow my knights thus to sacrifice their lives? or that he has a right to risk it?” Then, as he watches his progress, always farther and farther into the outworks of the Moor, “Who is he?” he cries again. “Will no one tell me his name? Methinks it were well for him he had shriven himself before he started, or his soul will be the worse for it very briefly.”
Before the king could be answered, a loud voice shouted at his ear: “Ride, ride for your life, Garcia Perez of Varga. I see the gleam of Moorish lances near at hand. Ride on, or you are lost.”
The voice that shouted was that of the Conde Lorenzo, the king’s Jefe, who, coming up behind the king at that moment, and having longer sight than his, recognised Don Garcia’s cognisance, a red cross and a green tree, and called out to warn him of his danger.
“Sire,” says he, in a lower tone, bowing before Fernando, “pardon me, I see seven Moors on horseback. They are in ambuscade in that wood yonder. They have sighted Don Garcia, and are waiting to break out upon him as he passes. Therefore I warned him.”