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Don Martin thanked them and took the marks, and bidding them both farewell, he departed right joyfully. XXIII. When Martin Antolinez came into the Cid's tent he said unto him, I have sped well, Campeador! you have gained six hundred marks, and I thirty. Now then strike your tent and be gone. The time draws on, and you may be with your Lady Wife at St. Pedro de Cardena, before the cock crows.

XIV. And Pero Bermudez rose and said to Count Garcia, Foul mouth, in which God hath put no truth, thou hast dared let thy tongue loose to speak of the Cid's beard.

It was time to look to his horse, who had more false quarter than real, being a worse jade than Gonela's, qui tantum pellis et ossa fuit; however, his master thought that neither Alexander's Bucephalus nor the Cid's Babieca could be compared with him.

After conquering the Moors in Valencia and elsewhere, his fame and wealth grew greater than ever, and two of the proudest nobles in Castile, the counts of Carrion, prayed Alfonso to use his rights as liege lord, and to grant them the Cid's daughters in marriage. Now, the proposal pleased Don Rodrigo but little, and his wife even less.

Fresnoy alone talked, speaking volubly of the accident, pouring out expressions of sympathy and cursing the road, the horse, and the wintry light until the water came; when, much refreshed by the draught, I managed to climb to the Cid's saddle and plod slowly onwards with them.

The story of the Cid's Daughters and the Knights of Carrion; the far more authentic one of Robert of Belesme; and many another ugly tale of the early middle age, will prove but too certainly that, before the days of chivalry began, neither youth, beauty, nor the sacred ties of matrimony, could protect women from the most horrible outrages, at the hands of those who should have been their protectors.

The first morning the counts sent their escorts ahead, and, left alone with their wives, stripped them of their garments, beat them and kicked them, and left them for dead. But Felez Muñoz, a loyal follower of the Cid's, riding back, found the two wives, bound up their wounds and obtained shelter for them in the house of a poor man whose wife and daughters promised to nurse them.

And they came, and valued the spoil and the prisoners, and gave for them three thousand marks of silver, which they paid within three days: they bought also much of the spoil which had been divided, making great gain, so that all who were in my Cid's company were full rich.

In the distance, to the left, lay the walls of Paris, and nearer, on the same side, a dozen forts and batteries; while here and there, in that quarter, a shining clump of spears or a dense mass of infantry betrayed the enemy's presence. I heeded none of these things, however, nor anything except the towers of Meudon, setting the Cid's head straight for these and riding on at the top of his speed.

Servan, matins and primes were said, and mass performed; and then he made ready to go to the Cortes, and with him went Alvar Fanez Minaya, whom he called his right arm, and Pero Bermudez, and Muno Gustios, and Martin Antolinez that doughty Burgalese, and Alvar Alvarez, and Alvar Salvadorez, and Martin Munoz, and Felez Munoz the Cid's nephew, and Malanda who was a learned man, and Galin Garciez the good one of Aragon: these and others made ready to go with him, being an hundred of the best of his company.