from them.

Don Rodrigo went forward to lift Ximena from her horse, and kissed her,
whispering as he did so:

'It is true, O my lady, that I killed your father, but I did it in fair
fight, as man to man. And in his stead you shall have a husband that
will care for you and protect you to the end of your life.'

Now, although Don Rodrigo was married, he did not stay at home much more
than he had done in other days, and his sword was ever unsheathed in the
service of his king. He was the champion chosen by Fernando to meet in
single combat Martino Gonzalez, the stoutest knight in Spain, and decide
a quarrel between Castile and Aragon. The victory lay with Rodrigo, and
no sooner was the duel over than he rode off to fight the Moors in the
North of Spain. At length the patience of Ximena was worn out, and she
wrote a letter to Fernando in which she told him plainly all that was in
her mind.

'What was the use,' she asked, 'of her marrying Rodrigo if the king kept
him for ever engaged in his service, and away from her?' She had no
father, and might as well have no husband, and she implored his master
to think upon her loneliness, and to let Rodrigo return to her side.

But the king would make no promises, and by-and-by Ximena had a little
girl to comfort her, to whom Fernando stood godfather.

It seems strange that after these great deeds King Fernando never
thought of making Don Rodrigo a knight, but so it was. Not till the long
siege of the city of Coimbra was ended, and the Moorish mosque turned
into a Christian church, was the order of knighthood conferred on Don
Rodrigo in return for the mighty works that he had done. But Don Rodrigo
knew well that his sword-thrusts would have availed him nothing had it
not been for the aid of a Greek bishop who dreamed when at the shrine of
St. James that the gates of the city would only fall when a successor of
the Apostle should appear before them. So the bishop arose and clad
himself in armour and rode into the Christian hosts, and as he drew
near, the walls fell down like Jericho of old, and the army entered in
triumph.

After this the Cid, as men now called him, from a Moorish word which
meant a man of great valour and fame, went home for a short space to see
his wife and his little daughter, who by this time was seven years old
and had never beheld her father. Rest was sweet to Don Rodrigo, but
before it could grow irksome to him he was summoned to court by the
death of Fe