ointing to a
knight who had recently entered. "Here is your old friend and comrade,
Count Julian."

"That Julian!" cried Pelistes, in tones of scorn; "that traitor and
renegade my friend and comrade! No, no; this is not Julian, but a fiend
from hell who has entered his body to bring him dishonor and ruin."

Turning scornfully away he strode proudly from the room, leaving the
traitor knight, overwhelmed with shame and confusion, the centre of a
circle of scornful looks, for the Arabs loved not the traitor, however
they might have profited by his treason.

The fate of Pelistes, as given in the Arab chronicles, was a tragic one.
Magued, who had never before met his equal at sword play, proposed to send
him to Damascus, thinking that so brave a man would be a fitting present
to the caliph and a living testimony to his own knightly prowess. But
others valued the prize of valor as well as Magued, Tarik demanding that
the valiant prisoner should be delivered to him, and Musa afterwards
claiming possession. The controversy ended in a manner suitable to the
temper of the times, Magued slaying the captive with his own hand rather
than deliver to others the prize of his sword and shield.

THE STRATAGEM OF THEODOMIR.

The defeat of the Guadalete seemed for the time to have robbed the Goths
of all their ancient courage. East and west, north and south, rode the
Arab horsemen, and stronghold after stronghold fell almost without
resistance into their hands, until nearly the whole of Spain had
surrendered to the scimitar. History has but a few stories to tell of
valiant defence by the Gothic warriors. One was that of Pelistes, at
Cordova, which we have just told. The other was that of the wise and
valorous Theodomir, which we have next to relate.

Abdul-Aziz, Musa's noble son, whose sad fate we have chronicled, had been
given the control of Southern Spain, with his head-quarters in Seville.
Here, after subduing the Comarca, he decided on an invasion of far-off
Murcia, the garden-land of the south, a realm of tropic heat, yet richly
fertile and productive. There ruled a valiant Goth named Theodomir, who
had resisted Tarik on his landing, had fought in the fatal battle in which
Roderic fell, and had afterwards, with a bare remnant of his followers,
sought his own territory, which after him was called the land of Tadmir.

Hither marched Abdul-Aziz, eager to meet in battle a warrior of such
renown, and to add to his dominio