r no blame for acts that we should consider cruel or
treacherous, but won great admiration and renown by his courage,
boldness, and marvelous skill in warfare.

The poets of that day delight in relating the various exploits of the
Cid. In a celebrated battle with Count Berenger, Rodrigo captured a vast
store of treasure, and many swords made in olden days. Among these was
the wonderful blade, Colada, worth a thousand marks in silver. With this
weapon, he afterwards slew many score of enemies in battle.

But the crowning glory of the Cid's adventurous life was the capture of
Valencia. This splendid city, on the east coast of Spain, was besieged
by him for many months. At length, the city fell into such straits that,
in the words of the old chronicler, "the inhabitants counted themselves
as dead men, and walked through the streets as though they were drunken.
They understood not the words of one another, and lost all of their
memory, even as a man who falls into the waves of the sea. Then came the
Christians up to the walls, and called aloud in words of thunder, making
mockery of them, and threatening them, and saying: 'False traitors and
renegades, give up your city to the Cid, Ruy Diaz, for ye cannot save
it!' And the Moors remained silent, so great was their grief and
despair."

A famous poem, the "Dirge of Valencia," composed by one of its Arab
inhabitants during the siege, gives us a picture of the wretched state
of the once beautiful city.

"Valencia! Valencia! many troubles are come upon thee,
and in such peril art thou set that, if thou escape, the
wonder will be great among all that behold thee.

"Thy lofty towers and beautiful, which gleamed from afar
and comforted the hearts of the people, are falling piece
by piece.

"Thy white bulwarks which shewed so fair in the distance
have lost the beauty whereby they shone so brightly in
the beams of the sun.

"Thy famous and delightful gardens that are round about
thee, the ravening wolf has torn up their roots and
they give no fruits."[1]

[Footnote 1: From "The Cid Campeador," by H. Butler Clarke, by
permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons.]

At last the unhappy city surrendered to the Cid, and he became its sole
ruler and a personage of still greater power and renown. In Valencia,
for some years, the conqueror lived in the royal magnificence of an
Oriental prince.

When the Moors under King Yusef