What more Don Sancho might have said, remained unspoken, for the Cid broke in with a terrible oath: “It is false. I have served you faithfully, according to my word. But I declare I will not take arms against the Infanta, nor against the city of Zamora, because of the days that are past.” “Traitor!” shouted Don Sancho, incensed beyond all bounds. “If it were not for my father, I would order you this instant to be hanged!” “It is not your father’s desires, but your own use for me which restrains you, Don Sancho. Have you not two brothers alive? And who shall gainsay me if I place one of them on the throne?” Without another word the Cid turned and left the tent, and calling to him his kinsmen and friends, rode out of the camp towards Toledo. King Don Sancho, greatly alarmed, sent after him and brought him back. So hard-pressed was Zamora, that although Doña Urraca was of a stout heart, she determined, by the advice of her foster-father and her council, as she would not willingly see all her people die, to retreat with them to Toledo, to join her brother, Don Alfonso, who was with the Moors. Now this was exactly what the traitor Dolfos was waiting for. “Lady Doña Infanta,” he said, kissing her hand as she sat on an ancient seat in her retiring room debating what she was to do, signs of hunger and grief on her royal face, “I have served you long, and never had any reward, though I have seen you gracious to other men. But if you will look with favour on me, I will make Don Sancho raise the siege.” Now this speech, which the chroniclers give us word for word, would seem to infer either that he was a villain, who took advantage of her strait, or that Doña Urraca was not that faultless dame we would fain believe her to be. Her answer, too, was calm, as of one to whom the aspirations of love were no strange matter. “Don Dolfos, I will answer you as the wise men did the fool. Bargains are made with the slothful, and with those in need. I am in sore need. I do not bid you to commit an evil deed, but I say there is _nothing_ I would not grant to the man who saves Zamora from the king.” Again Dolfos kissed her hand. Now it is well known that the king was treacherously slain by Dolfos, with his own gilded hunting-spear, outside the walls, believing that he had come to him secretly pretending to give Zamora up. The Cid, who was riding near, met him flying back towards the postern, and charged him with the deed, but he put spurs to his horse and got back within the walls. The Cid, eager to pursue him, took his lance from his esquire, but did not wait to buckle on his spurs, which was the only fault ever found with him in all his life. Without spurs he could not urge his horse as swiftly as the other, and so he escaped. Once inside the postern, Dolfos, in mortal fear of those within, rushed to the palace and flung himself at Doña Urraca’s feet, drawing her royal mantle over him for protection.