Pope; amulets more serviceable, it appeared, than the thickest armor, for we are assured by the veracious chroniclers of the age that not a Christian soldier who carried one of these valuable relics lost his life in the battle. The contest was long and obstinate; the Moslems performed prodigies of valor; but they had lost the religious fervor which had so often rendered their arms invincible; and anxiety for the safety of their spoils had greater influence upon them than the security of their conquest or the propagation of their religion. The issue long remained doubtful; but the Emir having exposed himself too rashly fell pierced by a lance; and his army, completely routed, retired from the field with the loss of two-thirds of its number. Abd-al-Rahman-al-Ghafeki, an officer of high rank and distinguished reputation, was invested with the temporary command by his associates, and conducted the shattered remnant of the Moslems to Narbonne. Intent on plundering the treasures of the enemy’s camp, which contained the bulk of the portable wealth of Septimania, the Franks could not be induced to reap the full advantages of victory. The retreat was conducted with consummate skill, for the peasantry, aroused by the news of the disaster, swarmed in vast numbers around the retreating Moslems, who were often compelled to cut their way through the dense and ever increasing masses, which immediately closed in and harassed their rear. This was the first serious reverse which had befallen the hitherto invincible arms of Islam. The tide had begun to turn, and the implacable enmity cultivated for centuries between the two contending nations of Arabia--which neither the precepts of a congenial form of faith, nor military fame, nor uninterrupted conquest, nor the possession of fabulous wealth, nor the enjoyment of the fairest portions of the globe could eradicate--was now to exhibit to the world the splendid weakness of the Successors of Mohammed. A glance at the origin and progress of this barbarian feud, which survived the impetuous ardor of proselytism, and had nourished for ages its hereditary vindictiveness, and, arising in distant Asia, was destined to be revived with undiminished violence upon the plains of Aragon and Andalusia, is essential to a proper understanding of the causes to which are to be attributed the downfall of the Moslem Empire of the West.