A grim old church for so sweet a flower to first open to the dews of divine grace in; the baptismal font at one end, and the grave at the other, with cold, gray arches encircling both like the all-embracing arms of that great nursing-mother――Death. At each side of the high altar are low, sepulchral recesses, into which you look down through a grating at the coroneted tombs, before which lamps hang dimly burning. Over the altar the Good Shepherd is going in search of his lost lambs, and at the left is a great, pale Christ on the Cross, ghastly and terrible in the shadowy, torch-lit arch. The whole church is paved with tomb-stones, like most of the churches of Avila, as if the idea of death could never be separated from life. But then, which is death and which life? Is it not in the womb of the grave we awaken to the real life? One of the most popular traditions of Avila is connected with the Square of San Juan: the defence of the city in 1109 by the heroic Ximena Blasquez, whose husband, father, and brothers were all valiant knights. The old governor of the city, Ximenes Blasquez, was dead, and Ximena’s husband and sons were away fighting on the frontier. The people, left without rulers and means of defence, came together on the public square and proclaimed her governor of the place. She accepted the charge, and proved herself equal to the emergency. Spain at this time was overrun by the Moors who had come from Africa to the aid of their brethren. They pillaged and ravaged the country as they went. Learning the defenceless state of Avila, and supposing it to contain great riches and many Moorish captives, they resolved to lay siege to it. Ximena was warned of the danger, and, instantly mounting her horse, she took two squires and rode forth to the country place of Sancho de Estrada to summon him to her aid. Sancho, though enfeebled by illness, was too gallant a knight to turn a deaf ear to the behest of ladye fair. He did not make his entrance into the city in a very knightly fashion, however. Instead of coming on his war-horse, all booted and spurred, and clad in bright armor, he was brought in a cart on two feather-beds, on the principle of Butler’s couplet, which we vary to suit the occasion: “And feather-bed ’twixt knight urbane And heavy brunt of springless wain.” In descending at the door of his palace at Avila he unfortunately fell and was mortally injured, and the vassals he had brought with him basely fled when they found they had no chastisement to fear. But the dauntless Ximena was not discouraged. Determined to save the city, she went from house to house, and street to street, to distribute provisions, count the men, furnish them with darts and arrows, and assign their posts. It is mentioned that she took all the flour she could find at the bishop’s; and Tamara, the Jewess, made her a present of all the salt meat she had on hand.[43]