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Then the Cid besieged Liria, and the people submitted unto him, that they should pay him yearly two thousand maravedis. And he overran the whole of the King of Zaragoza's country, and brought great spoils to Valencia.
"Then we were misinformed," the officer said; "the news was received last night that the Earl of Peterborough was himself here; and although it was but in the afternoon that we had heard that your general was at Valencia, his movements are so swift and erratic that, if we heard of him in Portugal one hour we should not be surprised to find him here the next."
We now heard that the Spanish generals, Morillo and La Torre, had drawn off their forces from Caracas, the first to Valencia, and the latter to Calabozo; leaving but a small garrison in the former city. No sooner did our active general receive this information, than he resolved to attempt the capture of the chief city of the province. Our forces were at once put in motion.
When ready to embark at Valencia to sail to Genoa, several of his well-wishers dissuaded him, because, as they asserted, the Barbary pirates were on the sea with many large ships. However, though they said a great deal to inspire fear, still he did not hesitate. Having gone aboard a vessel, a great storm arose during the voyage.
He had rented for his office half of the lower floor of an old house in the Mission. Like all the old homes that still stand to mark the era when Valencia Street was as desired an address as California Street is to-day, it stood upon bulkheaded ground, with a fat-pillared wooden fence bounding the wide lawns.
If it were not for these bands, they would be able to concentrate all their troops, and would soon capture Andalusia and Valencia, and then turn their attention to other work.
He attacked it with a large army in which there were soldiers from many foreign lands. The Cid is said to have been the commander. After a long siege the city fell and the victorious army marched across the great bridge built by the Moors, which you would cross to-day if you went to Toledo. Valencia was one of the largest and richest cities in Moorish Spain.
The latter rock is prevalent, both in descending from the Rincon del Diablo southward to the hot-springs of Mariara, and towards the banks of the lake of Valencia, and in advancing on the east towards the group of Buenavista, the Silla of Caracas and Cape Codera.
Then the Cid sent letters to Abeniaf, saying disdainfully unto him, that by God's help he had kept his Lent well, and accomplished his fast with a worthy sacrifice by murdering the King his master! and he reproached him for the shame he had done the King in casting his head into the pond and letting the body be buried in a dunghill; and at the end of the letter he bade Abeniaf give him his corn which he had left in his granaries at Valencia.
I will pull them down from the honour in which they now are; better men than they have I conquered and made prisoners ere now! and with your license, Sir, to Carrion will I follow them, even to their inheritance, and there will I besiege them, and take them by the throat, and carry them prisoners to Valencia to my daughters, and there make them do penance for the crime which they have committed, and feed them with the food which they deserve.
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