pe was pitted against Moslem Africa in
a holy war, Spain the prize of victory, and the plains of Andalusia the
arena of the coming desperate strife.

The decisive moment was at hand. Mohammed left Morocco and reached Seville
in June. His new levies were pouring into Spain in hosts. On the 21st of
June Alfonso began his advance, leading southward a splendid array.
Archbishops and bishops headed the army. In the van marched a mighty force
of fifty thousand men under Don Diego Lopez de Haro, ten thousand of them
being cavalry. After them came the troops of the kings of Aragon and
Castile, each a distinct army. Next came the knights of St. John of
Calatrava and the knights of Santiago, their grand-masters leading, and
after them many other bodies, including troops from Italy and Germany.
Such a gallant host Spain had rarely seen. It was needed, for the peril
was great. While one hundred thousand marched under the Christian banners,
the green standard of the prophet, if we may credit the historians, rose
before an army nearly four times as large.

[Illustration: ALFONSO VIII. HARANGUING HIS TROOPS UPON THE EVE OF
BATTLE.]

ALFONSO VIII. HARANGUING HIS TROOPS UPON THE EVE OF BATTLE.

Without dwelling on the events of the march, we may hasten forward to the
12th of July, when the host of Alfonso reached the vicinity of the Moorish
army, and the Navas de Tolosa, the destined field of battle, lay near at
hand. The word _navas_ means "plains." Here, on a sloping spur of the
Sierra Morena, in the upper valley of the Guadalquiver, about seventy
miles east of Cordova, lies an extended table-land, a grand plateau whose
somewhat sloping surface gave ample space for the vast hosts which met
there on that far-off July day.

To reach the plateau was the problem before Alfonso. The Moslems held the
ground, and occupied in force the pass of Losa, Nature's highway to the
plain. What was to be done? The pass could be won, if at all, only at
great cost in life. No other pass was known. To retire would be to
inspirit the enemy and dispirit the Christian host. No easy way out of the
quandary at first appeared, but a way was found,--by miracle, the writers
of that time say; but it hardly seems a miracle that a shepherd of the
region knew of another mountain-pass. This man, Martin Halaja, had grazed
his flocks in that vicinity for years. He told the king of a pass unknown
to the enemy, by which th