Stepping lightly over this disputed ground, the cautious Agapida resumes the course of the story where Pelayo discovers the residence of his sister in the city of Gijon, on the Atlantic coast, at the foot of the Asturian Mountains. It was a formidable fortress, chosen by Taric as a military post, to control the seaboard, and hold in check the Christian patriots who had taken refuge in the neighboring mountains. The commander of this redoubtable fortress was a renegado chief, who has been variously named by historians, and who held the sister of Pelayo a captive; though others affirm that she had submitted to become his wife, to avoid a more degrading fate. According to the old chronicle already cited, Pelayo succeeded by artifice in extricating her from his hands, and bearing her away to the mountains. They were hotly pursued, but Pelayo struck up a steep and rugged defile, where scarcely two persons could pass abreast, and partly by his knowledge of the defiles, partly by hurling down great masses of rock to check his pursuers, effected the escape of his sister and himself to a secure part of the mountains. Here they found themselves in a small green meadow, blocked up by a perpendicular precipice, whence fell a stream of water with great noise into a natural basin or pool, the source of the river Deva. Here was the hermitage of one of those holy men who had accompanied the Archbishop Urbano in his flight from Toledo, and had established a sanctuary among these mountains. He received the illustrious fugitives with joy, especially when he knew their rank and story, and conducted them to his retreat. A kind of ladder led up to an aperture in the face of the rock, about two pike lengths from the ground. Within was a lofty cavern capable of containing many people, with an inner cavern of still greater magnitude. The outer cavern served as a chapel, having an altar, a crucifix, and an image of the blessed Mary. This wild retreat had never been molested; not a Moslem turban had been seen within the little valley. The cavern was well known to the Gothic inhabitants of the mountains and the adjacent valleys. They called it the cave of Santa Maria; but it is more commonly known to fame by the name of Covadonga. It had many times been a secure place of refuge to suffering Christians, being unknown to their foes, and capable of being made a natural citadel. The entrance was so far from the ground that, when the ladder was removed, a handful of men could defend it from all assault. The small meadow in front afforded pasturage and space for gardens; and the stream that fell from the rock was from a never-failing spring. The valley was high in the mountains; so high that the crow seldom winged its flight across it, and the passes leading to it were so steep and dangerous that single men might set whole armies at defiance.