Don Lorenzo repeatedly asked him who was the recreant cavalier, but he always replied that he did not know, although he knew full well and saw him daily in the camp. But he was too generous to say anything that should take away the fame of another, and he charged his squire that never, by word or look, he should betray the secret; so that, though inquiries were often made, the name of that cavalier was never discovered.
CHAPTER XVI.
Of the Raft built by the Moors, and how it was boarded by Admiral Bonifaz.— Destruction of the Moorish Fleet.— Succor from Africa.
While the army of King Fernando the Saint harassed the city by land and cut off its supplies, the bold Bonifaz, with his fleet, shut up the river, prevented all succor from Africa, and menaced to attack the bridge between Triana and Seville, by which the city derived its sustenance from the opposite country. The Moors saw their peril. If this pass were destroyed, famine must be the consequence, and the multitude of their soldiers, on which at present they relied for safety, would then become the cause of their destruction.
So the Moors devised a machine by which they hoped to sweep the river and involve the invading fleet in ruin. They made a raft so wide that it reached from one bank to the other, and they placed all around it pots and vessels filled with resin, pitch, tar, and other combustibles, forming what is called Greek fire, and upon it was a great number of armed men; and on each shore—from the castle of Triana on the one side, and from the city on the other—sallied forth legions of troops, to advance at the same time with the raft. The raft was preceded by several vessels well armed, to attack the Christian ships, while the soldiers on the raft should hurl on board their pots of fire; and at length, setting all the combustibles in a blaze, should send the raft flaming into the midst of the hostile fleet, and wrap it in one general conflagration.
When everything was prepared, the Moors set off by land and water, confident of success. But they proceeded in a wild, irregular manner, shouting and sounding drums and trumpets, and began to attack the Christian ships fiercely, but without concert, hurling their pots of fire from a distance, filling the air with smoke, but falling short of their enemy. The tumultuous uproar of their preparations had put all the Christians on their guard. The bold Bonifaz waited not to be assailed; he boarded the raft, attacked vigorously its defenders, put many of them to the sword, and drove the rest into the water, and succeeded in extinguishing the Greek fire. He then encountered the ships of war, grappling them and fighting hand to hand from ship to ship. The action was furious and bloody, and lasted all the day. Many were cut down in flight, many fell into the water, and many in despair threw themselves in and were drowned.