seeking an opportunity of escape constantly besieged the gates of the city. Those who succeeded in reaching the Christian lines were either butchered or sold as slaves. Humanity had no place in the policy of mediæval warfare, especially when conducted by banditti. Experience had demonstrated that a prisoner in the last stages of famine was available for neither service nor ransom, and that a speedy death was the most natural and efficacious method of disposing of a captive in whose maintenance there was no profit and whose days were already numbered. The weakest and most emaciated of these wretches were therefore killed at once without ceremony. The degenerate Moslems of the neighboring provinces, who served in the army of the Cid, felt no compunctions in profiting by the servitude of their countrymen, and few could withstand the temptation of securing a slave for a trifle. Traders from Constantinople, Damascus, and Alexandria were always present in the camps of the armies which were contending for the possession of the Peninsula, and to these such of the Valencian refugees whose resources had in a measure exempted them from the misery of their townsmen were sold, to be again exposed in the slave-markets of the East. The general suffering finally became so great that the fugitives, enfeebled by hunger, were not able to traverse the short distance between the city and the camp,--the boundaries of famine and servitude or death. The city was not so closely invested that communication was closed with the besiegers or with the adjoining principalities. Ibn-Djahhaf attempted, in vain, to secure relief by the most liberal promises to the Emir of Saragossa and the King of Castile. They distrusted his sincerity, and, above all, they feared the vengeance of the Cid, now the greatest potentate in Spain. His emissaries, aided by sympathizers among the inhabitants and the garrison, seemed to have entered the gates of Valencia at will. By the unsparing use of money and promises, they openly endeavored to advance the interests of their commander. Several conspiracies to overthrow Ibn-Djahhaf were detected and punished. Representations concerning the weakness and disaffection of the garrison induced the Cid to attempt to take the city by storm. The plan miscarried; the Christians were repulsed with great loss, and their leader himself narrowly escaped capture. Fearing the intervention of the Sultan of Africa, the Cid now had recourse to an expedient so infamous that it would hardly be countenanced by barbarians. He issued a proclamation that all the Valencians in his camp must return within the walls or be burned alive, and that the same fate was thereafter destined for every refugee without exception. Funeral pyres were raised in places within full view of the ramparts, whence the citizens could easily see the tortures and hear the shrieks of their relatives and countrymen. This cruel edict made no distinction of age or sex, and