Roderick, who believed that they were fleeing from the enemy, broke up his camp. He could not, however, turn round, but was forced into the stream. He tried to reach the other side by swimming, but there he was met by archers. An Amazon came galloping along the bank on a red roan, and directed her bow against the drowning man in the middle of the stream. On the one bank he saw his troops, who had halted, signal with white flags as a sign of peace to the enemy on the opposite bank. When he saw that he was betrayed, he sank, and with him the whole kingdom of the West Goths. Mussa marched at once to Toledo, before a new king could be chosen. Thereby Islam became domiciled in Spain, and remained there till 1492. The Jews, who had especially helped the Moors, were at once emancipated, and in every town of Spain a Jew was appointed governor. EGINHARD TO EMMA EASTER, A.D. 843, The Benedictine Convent in Seligenstadt on the Main. To my dear wife and present sister in Christ, Emma, from Eginhard, formerly secretary to Charles the Great, now a monk in Seligenstadt on the Main: Passion-week is at an end, and the Resurrection days are here; spring has melted the frost; mind and memory have woken, and the past rises up again. Yesterday, on Easter Eve, I walked in the convent garden, and thought of my vanished five and seventy years. I thought of the fine things which were said in the learned circle or academy of the Great Unforgettable, when we played with words and thoughts, like chess-players with their pieces. “What is man?” asked our teacher, our wisest, Alcuin, whom we called Flaccus. Angilbert, the Emperor’s son-in-law, the husband of the beautiful Bertha, answered, “Man is the slave of death, a flying traveller, a guest in his own dwelling.” “Yes, truly,” I said to myself, “a guest; and soon I will pack my knapsack, pay my account, and journey on.” I went along the river-bank and thought, “The same river, always the same river, but always new water; the same water never runs twice past. Such is life, such is the river of time, the heroes and events of history--the panorama of time, the years and the glory of them, all pass and perish.” I then wished to pluck the first Easter lilies to send to you, who were once my wife, and went to the gardener down by the carp-pond. Whom did I meet on the path under the ivy, this plant of eternity, which only knows of death and birth, but not the changes of the seasons? I met the last survivor of the great days, of the Emperor’s Round Table, Thiodolf the Goth, now Bishop of Orleans. I cannot describe to you my joy at meeting him again, nor depict my feelings when I read in the face of the old man the whole history of our life.