The general landing of the army had not yet taken place, as Dom João I had not finished his review of the fleet. When he sent his son Dom Pedro to tell Dom Duarte to land, the answer came that he was already within the town. The king then gave orders for all to land, and the Portuguese army, divided into four bodies, marched upon the town.
The affliction of the women who fled, pressing their little children to their breasts, and the despair with which many men concealed their property, or fled carrying it with them, raised the courage of the Moorish warriors, and spurred them to make one supreme effort by which they succeeded in driving many Portuguese before them. Dom Henry would not check the first fugitives in their flight, for fear of harming those who followed, who would consequently be thrown back on the Moors, but when the latter approached, followed by a few knights, he barred the way. At the same time, ashamed of their fear and encouraged by the infante’s presence, the Portuguese returned to the charge, and the enemy fled in confusion. Meanwhile the Moors received reinforcements and renewed the fight, but were again repulsed by the Portuguese, encouraged by the infante.
The Moors falling back, the infante, followed only by seventeen of his men, pursued them; a desperate fight ensued, principally because the Moors attempted to carry off a Portuguese knight, whom the infante wished to recover. The Moors finally gave way, but the infante Dom Henry found himself shut in by the ruinous walls of the town, with only five knights at his side. Heroically maintaining his difficult position, he waited in vain for reinforcements; he was believed to be dead, until he was at last found by a Portuguese knight.
The infante wished to remain in his dangerous position until reinforcements reached him, but the entreaties addressed to him in the name of his father and Dom Duarte induced him to retreat; he proceeded to join his father at a mosque. Meanwhile the sun had set, and seeing a flight of sparrows resting upon the towers of the fort, the Portuguese inferred that the Moors had abandoned it. Salat ben Salat had fled with the garrison. They thereupon raised the flag of St. Vincent, patron of Lisbon, on the top of the fortress. The conquest was won; the loss on the side of the Moors was heavy, but the Portuguese loss was trifling; we will not however quote any number as great doubts exist on the subject.
On the following day the Moors appeared once more before the fortress; Dom Duarte and the constable sallied out to encounter them; these vain attacks were repeated, but the king strictly forbade his heir to take part in these skirmishes.
On the first Sunday the king decided to hear mass with his sons in the principal mosque of the town, already purified. Two bells pealed joyously from the highest tower. “How is this?” asked the major. The reply is not uninteresting: the town of Lagos had been a few years previously attacked by the Moors, who sacked the place and carried away these bells, and concealed them, but now discovered, they summoned the Christians to divine service.
The service was celebrated with great solemnity; Dom João knighted his sons, Dom Duarte, Dom Pedro, and Dom Henry. On their side João I’s sons knighted various valiant noblemen of their retinue. The aim of the expedition was realised, and the African lion began to give way before the power of Portugal.[f]
The government of the place was at first offered to a valiant knight, Martin Alfonso de Mello; and when he declined the dangerous honour, it was solicited and obtained by one of greater prowess still, Dom Pedro de Menezes, founder of the illustrious house of Villa Real. Having left a small but select garrison in Ceuta, and provided for the defence of the place against the inevitable assaults of the Moors, João re-embarked, and with the remainder of the armament returned to Lisbon.
[1415-1419 A.D.]
The heroism of the governor, Dom Pedro, and of the horsemen he commanded, is the constant and enthusiastic theme of praise by the national writers. The number of skirmishes which he was compelled to sustain during the three years immediately following the reduction of Ceuta is said, no doubt hyperbolically, to have exceeded the number of days. It is certain that during his government the place was frequently assailed by the whole power of the African Moors, aided by the fleet of their brethren of Granada. Sometimes the garrison by sorties obtained considerable booty, especially in flocks and herds. This warfare was as horrid as it was picturesque. When the Christian hidalgos and Almagaveres arrived at the village which they had been ordered to destroy, and the inhabitants of which were sure to be sunk in sleep, they generally divided into two or three bands, forced the doors of the houses, which they set on fire, and either massacred such as attempted to escape, or forced them back into the flames. The sudden conflagration, the shrieks of the women and children, rendered still more dismal by the silence of night, and the bloody figures of the assailants, gazing with ferocious joy on the scene before them, bore a character too demoniacal for this world. When all was finished, when the flames were expiring, and the last groan had pierced the sky, the orthodox warriors returned to the city, “praising God and our Lady for their success.”[148]