handsome, and
heroic, one who had fought under Roderic at the Guadalete, had been held
by the Arabs as a hostage at Cordova, and had escaped to his native hills,
there to infuse new life and hope into the hearts of the fugitive group.

Ibun Hayyan, an Arabian chronicler, gives the following fanciful account
of Pelayo and his feeble band. "The commencement of the rebellion happened
thus: there remained no city, town, or village in Galicia but what was in
the hands of the Moslems with the exception of a steep mountain, on which
this Pelayo took refuge with a handful of men. There his followers went on
dying through hunger until he saw their numbers reduced to about thirty
men and ten women, having no other food for support than the honey which
they gathered in the crevices of the rock, which they themselves inhabited
like so many bees. However, Pelayo and his men fortified themselves by
degrees in the passes of the mountain until the Moslems were made
acquainted with their preparations; but, perceiving how few they were,
they heeded not the advice given to them, but allowed them to gather
strength, saying, 'What are thirty barbarians perched upon a rock? They
must inevitably die.'"

Die they did not, that feeble relic of Spain on the mountain-side, though
long their only care was for shelter and safety. Here Pelayo cheered them,
doing his utmost to implant new courage in their fearful hearts. At length
the day came when Spain could again assume a defiant attitude, and in the
mountain valley of Caggas de Onis Pelayo raised the old Gothic standard
and ordered the beating of the drums. Beyond the sound of the long roll
went his messengers seeking warriors in valley and glen, and soon his
little band had grown to a thousand stalwart men, filled with his spirit
and breathing defiance to the Moslem conquerors. That was an eventful day
for Spain, in which her crushed people again lifted their heads.

It was a varied throng that gathered around Pelayo's banner. Sons of the
Goths and the Romans were mingled with descendants of the more ancient
Celts and Iberians. Representatives of all the races that had overrun
Spain were there gathered, speaking a dozen dialects, yet instinct with a
single spirit. From them the modern Spaniard was to come, no longer Gothic
or Roman, but a descendant of all the tribes and races that had peopled
Spain. Some of them carried the swords and shields they had wielded in the
battle of the Guadalete, o