Battle of Guadalete--Overthrow of Don Roderich
All night a light burned in the tent of Don Roderich. If he slept, his
slumbers were troubled. Now the pale form of Florinda rises before him
with sad eyes, then the hideous vision of the necromantic Tower of
Hercules haunts him. He starts up, and, opening the purple hangings of
his tent, gazes out at the starry splendour of the Southern night.
Before him lay the grassy flats about Xerez, dimly lit by the dark glow
of the signal fires marking the verge of the opposite camps. A pale
crescent moon hanging over the Moslem tents brought out the lines of low
hills far back on the horizon. Not a sound was heard but the tramp of
the sentinels, or the neigh of a war-horse, ill-stabled on the turf. The
distant click of a horse’s hoofs roused him to attention, and he
distinctly saw the shadowy outline of a single horseman hurrying along
the river’s verge, the bearer of the message big with his doom.
From his belt he drew an arrow and sped it swiftly from a golden bow,
watching its silent course, but the dark figure still rode on.
Heavy was his heart within him as he watched the dawn of day (say the
old chroniclers), not for himself, but for the thousands who lay
stretched in slumber around, and the thought of the lonely Egilona
called from him a sigh. Of all things, to a brave heart treachery is the
sorest woe, and treachery he knew was at work with Julian close at hand.
He would have challenged him to single battle, as knight to knight, but
for the memory of his crime. This made him shrink before the father
whose just vengeance had brought the invaders into the land.
With the glorious burst of morning all these dismal thoughts vanished.
Again he became the brilliant chief who had wrested from Witica the
crown of Spain. Again his heart swelled with the ardour of battle, as he
prepared to lead his army with the pomp proper to a Gothic king.
A comelier monarch never drew breath than Roderich as--attired in a robe
of beaten gold, sandals embroidered in pearls and diamonds on his feet,
a sceptre in his hand, and a gold crown on his head resplendent with
priceless gems--he mounted the lofty chariot of ivory, drawn by
milk-white horses champing bits of gold, the wheels and pole covered
with plates of gold, and a crimson canopy overhead. As he advanced in
front of the army shouts of delight rent the air.
“Forward, brave Goths,” he cried, waving his glittering sceptre, as he
halted in the front of the royal standard. “God is above to bless the
Christian cause! Your king leads you! Forward to the fight, and death be
his portion who shows any fear!”
Ere his voice had ceased, the sun, which had risen brilliantly, sank
behind a bank of vapour, and a rising sirocco raised such clouds of dust
that the very air was darkened.
Various was the fortune of the day. To the battalions of light Arab
horsemen, throwing showers of arrows, stones, and javelins, the old
Gothic valour opposed lines of steady troops. Where the Moslem fell, the
Christian rushed in, seized both horse and armour. Desperately they
fought and well, until the plain was strewn with prostrate Moors.
Don Roderich, throwing off the cumbrous robes of state, and mounting his
satin-coated steed, Orelia, a horned helmet on his head, sternly
grasping his buckler, was foremost wherever danger menaced. With the
reins loose upon Orelia’s neck (who utters a wild snort rushing forward
at full speed to meet the charge) the Moors fled before him, as though
he were a second Santiago descended from the skies.
Tháryk, the one-eyed, maddened at seeing his battalions retreating,
flung himself before them, and, rising in his stirrups, strove to stem
the tide.
“Oh, Mussulmen,” he shouted, “whither would you fly? The sea is behind
you, the enemy in front. You have no hope but in valour. Follow me; aim
at the leaders. Pick off the Christian knights. He who brings in the
head of the Goth shall swim in gold.” And putting spurs to his charger,
he laid about him to right and left, trampling down the foot-soldiers,
followed by Tenedos, a Spanish renegade, and a whole company of savage
Berbers, who fell upon Ataulfo and the men he led.
A hand-to-hand conflict ensued. Ataulfo was wounded while he struggled
with Tenedos, whom he had felled to the earth with his battle-axe, but
his good horse being disabled and useless, obliged him to dismount. He
tried to seize the reins of that of Tenedos, but the sagacious animal,
as if recognising the hand which had smitten his master, reared and
plunged, and would not let him mount. On foot he repulsed a whole circle
of assailants. Blow after blow he dealt upon the enemy, keeping back the
fierce crew of turbaned Berbers that sought to strike him down.
“All honour to Christian chivalry,” cried Tháryk, who, seeing the quick
gleam of swords and scimitars around the Gothic prince, spurred to the
spot. But a selfish thought came to crush the generous impulse which had
moved him for a moment.
“If Ataulfo falls, it will be death to the army of Roderich,” whereupon
he dealt him such a cruel blow with his scimitar as felled him to the
earth. A pool of blood formed round him. Then the Moor, for an instant
separated from him by a squadron of horse, led by Pelistes, hastened to
deal him the death-blow.
No Goth possessed the moral influence of Pelistes. He was the high
priest of chivalry. With him rode his only son. In vain he warned him
not to expose himself. In vain! The die was cast--he fell! His maiden
battle was doomed to be his last! Alas! poor father! Borne on the
shields of his vassals, they carried the boy towards the royal tent,
where Roderich was leading his Gothic guards forward to terminate the
battle by a victorious onslaught.
At this moment, when the sun, long obscured by clouds, reached the
meridian, and shone forth in sudden lustre, a deafening shout was heard,
and Archbishop Opas, in a complete suit of armour, struck out from the
centre of the Christian army at a gallop to join the Moors.
From that moment the fortune of battle changes. In vain does Pelistes,
forgetting his grief, lead on such as would follow him. For the first
time his voice falls on deaf ears. In vain Teodomir endeavours to rally
his veterans. In vain Roderich on his war-horse, grasps sword and
buckler, to reform his flying troops. Surrounded and assailed by his own
treacherous subjects, his sword flies like lightning round his homed
casque, each stroke felling an enemy. Around him the fight thickens. “A
kingdom for his head,” cries the voice of Julian, pressing closer and
closer with his perjured band.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF MECCA IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.]
A mortal panic falls on the Christians. Not only do they not fight, but
they throw away their arms and fly!
For three whole days the Bedouins and Berbers, the fleetest riders among
the Africans, pursue the flying Goths over the plains. But few of that
vast host live to tell the tale. Alone, with a compact body of men,
Teodomir manages to escape into the East, and Pelistes, carrying the
body of his son, shuts himself up behind the walls of Cordoba.
And Roderich?
The Christian chronicler who furnishes these details records that the
king fell by the sword of Julian, but this is too much of a monkish
morality to be true. It is said that Orelia, stained with blood and
disabled, was found entangled in a marsh on the borders of the
Guadalete, the sandals and mantle of her master beside her.
But where history is silent romancers take up the tale, in those same
ballads, parodied by Cervantes, in the inimitable scene of the puppets,
in the second part of Don Quixote, when Master Peter, representing
Roderich’s tragic death, grows alarmed at the Don’s frantic wrath, and
his drawn sword, and cries, “Hold! hold! These are no real Berbers and
Moors, but harmless dolls of pasteboard, picturing unhappy King
Roderich, who said, ‘Yesterday I was lord of Spain, and to-day I have
not a foot of land which I can call my own. Not half an hour ago I had
knights and empire at my command, horses in abundance, and chests and
bags of gold, but now you see me a ruined and undone man!’”
Roderich, say the ballads, did not perish in the battle of the
Guadalete, but seeing that the day was lost, he fled. But not far, for
the sleek-skinned Orelia, bleeding with wounds to death, soon fell. Then
the king wandered on foot, faint and sick, his sword hacked into a saw,
his jewelled mail drilled through. On the top of the highest rock (that
is not much, for we are in the eternal plains) he sits down and weeps.
Wherever he turns the sight of death meets his gaze. His valiant Goths
have fallen or have fled. No refuge is left in the walled cities, or by
the sea-shore. Toledo, his capital, is far away, and who knows if his
banner still floats from the Alcazar towers? Below is the battlefield
stained with Christian blood. There his royal banner trails in the dust.
The bodies of his dying troops cover the plain. The shrill cry of the
Arab comes sharply to his ear. He can discern the form of Julian, sword
in hand, dealing destruction to such as still linger, and Tháryk, on his
Arab courser white-turbaned, more terrible than the phantoms of the
black kings who haunt the desert!
Just, however, as Roderich, in despair, is about to kill himself (so the
ballad says) a shepherd appears, who gives him food, and conducts him to
a neighbouring hermit. The hermit, on learning who he is, regards him
somewhat dubiously, exhorts him to pray, and purify himself from sin.
As to hospitality he can offer him only an open grave, into which
Roderich descends without a murmur, in company with a big black snake.
If his repentance be sincere, the hermit tells him, the snake will leave
him harmless; if not, it will bite him until he dies.
In the grave the king lies silent for three days. Then the hermit
appears, and asks: “How fares it, most noble king? How do you relish
your dark bed and dismal bedfellow?”
“The snake,” answers Roderich, “is black, and rears its crest, but it
does not bite me. Pray for me, good father, that I may be unharmed.”
But that very afternoon, sore and doleful moans smite the hermit’s ear.
It is Roderich from the grave crying, “Father, father, the snake gnaws
me. Now, now I feel his pointed teeth. O God, will it soon end?”
At which the hermit, gazing down, exhorts him to bear the pain, “to save
his sinful soul,” in the true style of monkish consolation.
And thus poor Roderich dies a miserable death, verifying what Sancho
Panza says to the duchess, “that all the silks and riches of the Goths
did not prevent his being cut off,” and the traitor and renegade,
Julian, helps the Moors to possess Xerez, and the plain from Seville to
the rock of Gibraltar, called _Gebel Tháryk_ (hill of Tháryk,) which
they kept for many centuries, until driven out by Alonso, the wise King
of Leon and Castile.