s chair.
We pressed around the throne to shield our loved from harm.
Till the good Cid awoke. He rose without alarm.
He went to meet the lion with his mantle on his arm.
The lion was abashed the noble Cid to meet;
He bowed his mane to the earth, his muzzle at his feet.
The Cid by the neck and the mane drew him to his den,
He thrust him in at the hatch, and came to the hall again.
He found his knights, his vassals, and all his valiant men.
He asked for his sons-in-law, they were neither of them there
I defy you for a coward and a traitor as you are.'"

LAS NAVAS DE TOLOSA.

On the 16th of July, 1212, was fought the great battle which broke the
Moorish power in Spain. During the two centuries before fresh streams of
invasion had flowed in from Africa to yield new life to the Moslem power.
From time to time in the Mohammedan world reforms have sprung up, and been
carried far and wide by fanaticism and the sword. One such body of
reformers, the Almoravides, invaded Spain in the eleventh century and
carried all before it. It was with these that the Cid Campeador had to
deal. A century later a new reformer, calling himself El Mahdi, appeared
in Africa, and set going a movement which overflowed the African states
and made its way into Spain, where it subdued the Moslem kingdoms and
threatened the Christian states. These invaders were known as the
Almohades. They were pure Moors. The Arab movement had lost its strength,
and from that time forward the Moslem dominions in Spain were peopled
chiefly by Moors.

Spain was threatened now as France had been threatened centuries before
when Charles Martel crushed the Arab hordes on the plains of Tours. All
Christendom felt the danger and Pope Innocent III. preached a crusade for
the defence of Spain against the infidel. In response, thousands of armed
crusaders flocked into Spain, coming in corps, in bands, and as
individuals, and gathered about Toledo, the capital of Alfonso VIII., King
of Castile. From all the surrounding nations they came, and camped in the
rich country about the capital, a host which Alfonso had much ado to feed.

Mohammed An-Nassir, the emperor of the Almohades, responded to the effort
of the Pope by organizing a crusade in Moslem Africa. He proclaimed an
_Algihed_, or Holy War, ordered a massacre of all the Christians in his
dominions, and then led the fanatical murderers to Spain to join the
forces there in arms. Christian Euro