Not many were the men with whom he had done his work, but they were
soldiers of tried temper and daring hearts. "There were one thousand
knights of lineage and five hundred and fifty other horsemen. There were
four thousand foot-soldiers, besides boys and others. Thus many were the
people of My Cid, him of Bivar. And his heart rejoiced, and he smiled and
said, 'Thanks be to God and to Holy Mother Mary! We had a smaller company
when we left the house of Bivar.'"
The next year King Yussef, leader of the Moors, came again to the siege of
Valencia, this time with fifty thousand men. Small as was the force of the
Cid as compared with this great army, he had no idea of fighting cooped up
like a rat in a cage. Out once more he sallied, with but four thousand men
at his back. His bishop, Hieronymo, absolved them, saying, "He who shall
die, fighting full forward, I will take as mine his sins, and God shall
have his soul."
A learned and wise man was the good bishop, but a valorous one as well,
mighty in arms alike on horseback and on foot. "A boon, Cid don Rodrigo,"
he cried. "I have sung mass to you this morning. Let me have the giving of
the first wounds in this battle."
"In God's name, do as you will," answered the Cid.
That day the bishop had his will of the foe, fighting with both hands
until no man knew how many of the infidels he slew. Indeed, they were all
too busy to heed the bishop's blows, for, so the chronicle says, only
fifteen thousand of the Moslems escaped. Yussef, sorely wounded, left to
the Cid his famous sword Tisona, and barely escaped from the field with
his life.
Bucar, the brother of Yussef, came to revenge him, but he knew not with
whom he had to deal. Bishop Hieronymo led the right wing, and made havoc
in the ranks of the foe. "The bishop pricked forward," we are told. "Two
Moors he slew with the first two thrusts of his lance; the haft broke and
he laid hold on his sword. God! how well the bishop fought. He slew two
with the lance and five with the sword. The Moors fled."
"Turn this way, Bucar," cried the Cid, who rode close on the heels of the
Moorish chief; "you who came from behind sea to see the Cid with the long
beard. We must greet each other and cut out a friendship."
"God confound such friendships," cried Bucar, following his flying troops
with nimble speed.
Hard behind him rode the Cid, but his horse Bavieca was weary with the
day's hard work, and Bucar rode a fresh and swift steed. And thus they
went, fugitive and pursuer, until the ships of the Moors were at hand,
when the Cid, finding that he could not reach the Moorish king with his
sword, flung the weapon fiercely at him, striking him between the
shoulders. Bucar, with the mark of battle thus upon him, rode into the sea
and was taken into a boat, while the Cid picked up his sword from the
ground and sought his men again.
The Moorish host did not escape so well. Set upon fiercely by the
Spaniards, they ran in a panic into the sea, where twice as many were
drowned as were slain in the battle; and of these, seventeen thousand and
more had fallen, while a vast host remained as prisoners. Of the
twenty-nine kings who came with Bucar, seventeen were left dead upon the
field.
The chronicler uses numbers with freedom. The Cid is his hero, and it is
his task to exalt him. But the efforts of the Moors to regain Valencia and
their failure to do so may be accepted as history. In due time, however,
age began to tell upon the Cid, and death came to him as it does to all.
He died in 1099, from grief, as the story goes, that his colleague, Alvar
Fanez, had suffered a defeat. Whether from grief or age, at any rate he
died, and his wife, Ximena, was left to hold the city, which for two years
she gallantly did, against all the power of the Moors. Then Alfonso
entered it, and, finding that he could not hold it, burned the principal
buildings and left it to the Moors. A century and a quarter passed before
the Christians won it again.
When Alfonso left the city of the Cid he brought with him the body of the
campeador, mounted upon his steed Bavieca, and solemnly and slowly the
train wound on until the corpse of the mighty dead was brought to the
cloister of the monastery of Cardena. Here the dead hero was seated on a
throne, with his sword Tisona in his hand; and, the story goes, a caitiff
Jew, perhaps wishing to revenge his brethren who had been given sand for
gold, plucked the flowing beard of the Cid. At this insult the hand of the
corpse struck out and the insulter was hurled to the floor.
The Cid Campeador is a true hero of romance, and well are the Spaniards
proud of him. Honor was the moving spring of his career. As a devoted son,
he revenged the insult to his father; as a loving husband, he made Ximena
the partner of his fame; as a tender father, he redressed his daughters'
wrongs; as a loyal subject, he would not serve a king on whom doubt of
treachery rested. In spite of the injustice of the king, he was true to
his country, and came again and again to its aid. Though forced into the
field as a free lance, he was throughout a Christian cavalier. And, though
he cheated the Jews, the story goes that he repaid them their gold.
Courage, courtesy, and honor were the jewels of his fame, and romance
holds no nobler hero.
It will not be amiss to close our tale of the Cid with a quotation from
the famous poem in which it is shown how even a lion quailed before his
majesty:
"Peter Bermuez arose; somewhat he had to say;
The words were strangled in his throat, they could not find their way;
Till forth they came at once, without a stop or stay:
'Cid, I'll tell you what, this always is your way;
You have always served me thus, whenever you have come
To meet here in the Cortes, you call me Peter the Dumb.
I cannot help my nature; I never talk nor rail;
But when a thing is to be done, you know I never fail.
Fernando, you have lied, you have lied in every word;
You have been honored by the Cid and favored and preferred.
I know of all your tricks, and can tell them to your face:
Do you remember in Valencia the skirmish and the chase?
You asked leave of the Cid to make the first attack,
You went to meet a Moor, but you soon came running back.
I met the Moor and killed him, or he would have killed you;
I gave you up his arms, and all that was my due.
Up to this very hour, I never said a word;
You praised yourself before the Cid and I stood by and heard
How you had killed the Moor, and done a valiant act;
And they believed you all, but they never knew the fact.
You are tall enough and handsome, but cowardly and weak,
Thou tongue without a hand, how can you dare to speak?
There's the story of the lions should never be forgot;
Now let us hear, Fernando, what answer you have got?
The Cid was sleeping in his chair, with all his knights around;
The cry went forth along the hall that the lion was unbound.
What did you do, Fernando? Like a coward as you were,
You shrunk behind the Cid, and crouched beneath his chair.
We pressed around the throne to shield our loved from harm.
Till the good Cid awoke. He rose without alarm.
He went to meet the lion with his mantle on his arm.
The lion was abashed the noble Cid to meet;
He bowed his mane to the earth, his muzzle at his feet.
The Cid by the neck and the mane drew him to his den,
He thrust him in at the hatch, and came to the hall again.
He found his knights, his vassals, and all his valiant men.
He asked for his sons-in-law, they were neither of them there
I defy you for a coward and a traitor as you are.'"