"The fleet will have all it can do to keep the sea, against the navies of France and Spain. They will do what they can, you may be sure; but the enemy well know that it is only by starving us out that they can hope to take the place, and I expect they will put such a fleet here that it will be mighty difficult for even a boat to find its way in between them."
"Do you know about the other sieges?" Mrs. O'Halloran asked. "Of course, I know something about the last siege; but I know nothing about the history of the Rock before that, and of course Gerald doesn't know."
"And why should I, Carrie? You don't suppose that when I was at school, at Athlone, they taught me the history of every bit of rock sticking up on the face of the globe? I had enough to do to learn about the old Romans--bad cess to them, and all their bothering doings!"
"I can tell you about it, Mrs. O'Halloran," Teddy Burke said. "Bob's professor, who comes to have a talk with me for half an hour every day, has been telling me all about it; and if Gerald will move himself, and mix me a glass of grog to moisten my throat, I will give you the whole story of it.
"You know, no doubt, that it was called Mount Calpe, by Gerald's friends the Romans; who called the hill opposite there Mount Abyla, and the two together the Pillars of Hercules. But beyond giving it a name, they don't seem to have concerned themselves with it; nor do the Phoenicians or Carthaginians, though all of them had cities out in the low country.
"It was when the Saracens began to play their games over here that we first hear of it. Roderic, you know, was king of the Goths, and seems to have been a thundering old tyrant; and one of his nobles, Julian--who had been badly treated by him--went across with his family into Africa, and put up Mousa, the Saracen governor of the province across there, to invade Spain. They first of all made a little expedition--that was in 711--with one hundred horse, and four hundred foot. They landed over there at Algeciras and, after doing some plundering and burning, sailed back again, with the news that the country could be conquered. So next year twelve thousand men, under a chief named Tarik, crossed and landed on the flat between the Rock and Spain. He left a party here to build the castle; and then marched away, defeated Roderic and his army at Xeres, and soon conquered the whole of Spain, except the mountains of the north.
"We don't hear much more of Gibraltar for another six hundred years. Algeciras had become a fortress of great strength and magnificence, and Gibraltar was a mere sort of outlying post. Ferdinand the Fourth of Spain besieged Algeciras for years, and could not take it; but a part of his army attacked Gibraltar, and captured it. The African Moors came over to help their friends, and Ferdinand had to fall back; but the Spaniards still held Gibraltar--a chap named Vasco Paez de Meira being in command.
"In 1333 Abomelique, son of the Emperor of Fez, came across with an army and besieged Gibraltar. Vasco held out for five months, and was then starved into surrender, just as Alonzo the Eleventh was approaching to his assistance. He arrived before the town, five days after it surrendered, and attacked the castle; but the Moors encamped on the neutral ground in his rear, and cut him off from his supplies; and he was obliged at last to negotiate, and was permitted to retire. He was not long away. Next time he attacked Algeciras; which, after a long siege, he took in 1343.
"In 1349 there were several wars in Africa, and he took advantage of this to besiege Gibraltar. He was some months over the business, and the garrison were nearly starved out; when pestilence broke out in the Spanish camp, by which the king and many of his soldiers died, and the rest retired.
"It was not until sixty years afterwards, in 1410, that there were fresh troubles; and then they were what might be called family squabbles. The Africans of Fez had held the place, till then; but the Moorish king of Grenada suddenly advanced upon it, and took it. A short time afterwards, the inhabitants rose against the Spanish Moors, and turned them out, and the Emperor of Morocco sent over an army to help them; but the Moors of Grenada besieged the place, and took it by famine.