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When Don Rodrigo heard this and knew that the Castillians were approaching, and who they were, he promised the King either to maintain his cause, or die for it; and he besought him not to go into the battle himself, having so many vassals and so good; for it was not fitting that he should expose himself when there was no King coming against him.

Every day their host increased, for their people were many in number, and their watchmen kept watch day and night; and my Cid had no succour to look for except the mercy of God, in which he put his trust. And the Moors beset them so close that they cut off their water, and albeit the Castillians would have sallied against them, my Cid forbade this.

And Dona Urraca made answer, Counsel me then so that he may not die for this which he hath done. Don Arias Gonzalo then answered, Give him unto me, and I will keep him in custody for three days, and if the Castillians impeach us we will deliver him into their hands; and if they do not impeach us within that time, we will thrust him out of the town so that he shall not be seen among us.

Castille! and charged the main body so fiercely that by fine force he broke them; and when they were thus broken, the Castillians began cruelly to slay them, so that King Don Sancho had pity thereof, and called out unto his people not to kill them, for they were Christians.

Of high birth, which among the haughty Castillians has always counted for a great deal, he had passed his boyhood among ecclesiastics and academics. He was twelve years older than St. Francis. He studied theology for ten years at the University of Palencia, and before the twelfth century closed he was an Augustinian Canon. In 1203, while St.

Science became a pathway that led to the bonfire; and then came a fresh calamity, the expulsion of the Spanish Jews, so saturated with the spirit of this country, loving it so dearly, that even to-day, after four centuries, scattered on the shores of the Danube or the Bosphorus there are Spanish Jews who weep, like old Castillians, for their lost country: 'Perdimos la bella Sion; Perdimos tambien España Nido de consolacion.

And they rejoiced together all that night, and great was the joy of the people of Toledo, because of the love which King Don Alfonso bore toward their Lord. But great was the sorrow in the host of the Castillians, for they never thought to see their Lord again; and they thought that he had committed a great folly in thus putting himself into the power of the Moors.

But better had it been for Don Arias Gonzalo if he had given up Vellido to the Castillians, that he might have died the death of a traitor; he would not then have lost these three sons, who died like good men, in their duty.

Do you not know that when Pope Clement and the Spaniards besieged Florence, it was only by the work and virtue of the painter M. Angelo that the besieged were defended a good while, not to say, the city released, and the captains and soldiers outside were for a good while astonished and oppressed and killed through the defences and strongholds which I made on the tower, lining them in one night on the outside with bags of wool and other materials, emptying them of earth and filling them with fine powder, with which I burnt a little the blood of the Castillians, whom I sent through the air torn in pieces?

Moreover the Castillians assembled together and found that as King Don Sancho had left no son to succeed him they were bound by right to receive King Don Alfonso as their Lord; and they also sent unto him in secret.