When the trumpets of the pursuivants sounded, Muño Gustioz and Asur González ran swiftly and fiercely together. The point of Asur's spear glanced off Muño's armour, but that of the Cid's champion pierced the shield of his opponent and drove right through his breast, so that it stuck out a full fathom between the shoulder-blades. The haughty Asur fell heavily to the ground, but had enough of life left in him to beg for mercy. King Alfonso then duly credited the Cid's champions with the victory, and without loss of time they returned to Valencia to acquaint their master with the grateful news that his honour had been avenged. Shortly afterward the espousals of the Cid's daughters to the noble Infantes of Navarre and Aragon were celebrated with much pomp. The Poema del Cid, however, concludes as abruptly as it begins: So in Navarre and Aragon his daughters both did reign, And princes of his blood to-day sit on the thrones of Spain. Greater and greater grew his name in honour and in worth; At last upon a Pentecost he passed away from earth. Upon him be the grace of Christ, Whom all of us adore. Such is the story, gentles, of the Cid Campeador. The Real Cid Cervantes' summing-up upon the Poema del Cid is perhaps the sanest on record. The Cid certainly existed in the flesh; what matter, then, whether his achievements occurred or not? For the Cid of romance is a very different person from the Cid of history, who was certainly a born leader of men, but crafty, unscrupulous, and cruel. The Poema is thus romance of no uncertain type, and as this book deals with romance and not with history, there is small need in this place to provide the reader with a chronicle of the rather mercenary story of Roderigo of Bivar the real. "Mio Cid," the title under which he is most frequently mentioned, is a half Arabic, half Spanish rendering of the Arabic Sid-y, "My lord," by which he was probably known to his Moorish subjects in Valencia, and it is unlikely that he was given this appellation in Spain during his lifetime. But even to this day it is a name to conjure with in the Peninsula. So long as the heart of the Briton beats faster at the name of Arthur and the Frenchman is thrilled by the name of Roland the Spaniard will not cease to reverence that of the great romantic shadow which looms above the early history of his land like a very god of war--the Cid Campeador. CHAPTER III: "AMADIS DE GAUL" There stands a castle on a magic height Whose spell-besetten pathways ye may climb If that ye love fair chivalry sublime. Come, its enchanted turrets yield the sight, As long ago to demoiselle and knight, Of many a satrapy of ancient rhyme, And in its carven corridors shall Time Display us trophies of a dead delight: