The Moors from Africa invaded Spain. In the extremity of his distress, Alfonso recalled the Cid, who soon drove back the enemy. For a considerable time that leader enjoyed the gratitude of his sovereign, and was the soul of the Christian army; and then circumstances arose which his enemies ingeniously perverted to his injury. Alfonso was gone into Andalusia against the Moors, unaccompanied by the Cid, whom sickness detained at home. He recovered, however, in time to meet and repel a Moorish invasion on the other side; and he retaliated on them as far as Toledo, whose king complained to Alfonso of the campeador's violation of the oath and covenant between them. Alfonso was astonished and displeased; and suffering his mind to be influenced by the suggestions of the Ricos-omes, all his hatred of the Cid returned in its pristine force. He saw nothing in him now but the avenger of Don Sancho's death. He summoned him to Burgos; but the Cid replied he would meet him between that town and Bivar. They accordingly met, and the campeador would have kissed his hand in homage; but the King repulsed him, angrily saying, "Ruydiez, quit my land." The Cid instantly pricked his mule to another piece of ground, and replied, "I am now, Sir, upon my own land, and not upon yours." The King then commanded him to depart from his states forthwith, not even allowing him thirty days' time, the usual licence of the hidalgos. The moment of his banishment was not an unhappy one, for it was then that he discovered his strength; many knights and other valiant men-of-arms resolving, with his cousin-german, Alvar Fañez, to accompany him through desert and peopled country, and spend their wealth, and garments, and horses in his service. But the joyous exultation of this consciousness of power was soon checked by the grief of quitting his own home;--the deserted hall, the perches without hawks upon them, the porch without its seats, no cloaks hanging down the walls:--all these signs of desolation brought tears into his eyes, and he exclaimed, "My enemies have done this:" but soon recovering his Christian resignation, he cried, "God be praised for all things." He passed through Burgos, where the people could not receive him, for the King had prohibited them to do so; and he whose sword had been girt on in a happy hour, was condemned to pitch his tents upon the sands. [Sidenote: Singular story of the Cid's unknightly meanness.]