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Updated: June 29, 2025
Muza received on the small surface of his shield the ponderous spear of Alonzo, while his own light lance struck upon the helmet of the Christian, and by the exactness of the aim rather than the weight of the blow, made Alonzo reel in his saddle. The lances were thrown aside the long broad falchion of the Christian, the curved Damascus cimiter of the Moor, gleamed in the air.
The Moor's horse stumbled over the ground, cumbered with the dead and slippery with blood, and his uplifted cimiter could not do more than break the force of the gigantic arm of De Suzon; as the knight's falchion bearing down the cimiter, and alighting on the turban of the Mohammedan, clove midway through its folds, arrested only by the admirable temper of the links of steel which protected it.
Taught to believe the war itself depended on the preservation of the enchanted banner, the Paynims could not see it thus rashly adventured without anxiety and shame: they rallied, advanced firmly, and Boabdil himself, with waving cimiter and fierce exclamations, dashed impetuously at the head of his guards and Ethiopians into the affray. The battle became obstinate and bloody.
"The dark fiend guides his blade!" thought De Suzon; "but I was shriven but yestermorn." The thought restored his wonted courage; and he spurred on to meet the cimiter of the Moor. His assault took Muza by surprise.
They reined their chargers opposite each other in grave and deliberate silence. "Yield thee, sir knight!" at length cried the fierce Moor, "for the motto on my cimiter declares that if thou meetest its stroke, thy days are numbered. "False Paynim," answered Alonzo, in a voice that rung hollow through his helmet, "a Christian knight is the equal of a Moorish army!"
With a rashness which seemed to the superstitious Spaniards like the safety of a man protected by magic, he spurred his ominous black barb into the very midst of the serried phalanx which Villena endeavoured to form around him, breaking the order by his single charge, and from time to time bringing to the dust some champion of the troop by the noiseless and scarce-seen edge of his fatal cimiter.
Muza received on the small surface of his shield the ponderous spear of Alonzo, while his own light lance struck upon the helmet of the Christian, and by the exactness of the aim rather than the weight of the blow, made Alonzo reel in his saddle. The lances were thrown aside the long broad falchion of the Christian, the curved Damascus cimiter of the Moor, gleamed in the air.
But the blow of the heavy falchion had not touched him: and, seemingly without an effort, the curved blade of his own cimiter, gliding by that part of his antagonist's throat where the helmet joins the cuirass, passed unresistingly and silently through the joints; and Alonzo fell at once, and without a groan, from his horse his armour, to all appearance, unpenetrated, while the blood oozed slow and gurgling from a mortal wound.
Like wild beasts, driven, at length, to their lair, they retreated with their faces to the foe; and when Muza came, the last his cimiter shivered to the hilt, he had scarcely breath to command the gates to be closed and the portcullis lowered, ere he fell from his charger in a sudden and deadly swoon, caused less by his exhaustion than his agony and shame.
The pavement was spread with ottomans and couches of the richest azure, prodigally enriched with quaint designs in broideries of gold and silver; and over that on which the Moor reclined, facing the open balcony, were suspended on a pillar the round shield, the light javelin, and the curving cimiter, of Moorish warfare.
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