pay for the
insults they had received. Although the Cid little suspected this
fact, he regretfully allowed his daughters to depart, and tried to
please his sons-in-law by bestowing upon them the choice swords,
Tizona and Colada, won in the course of his battles against the Moors.

Two days' journey from Valencia the Infantes prepared to carry out the
revenge they had planned, but while conferring in regard to its
details were overheard by a Moor, who, vowing he would have nothing to
do with such cowards, left them unceremoniously. Sending on their main
troops with a cousin of the girls, Felez Munoz, who served as their
escort, the Infantes led their wives into a neighboring forest, where,
after stripping them, they beat them cruelly, kicked them with their
spurs, and abandoned them grievously wounded and trembling for their
lives. When the Infantes rejoined their suite minus their wives, Felez
Munoz, suspecting something was wrong, rode back hastily, and found
his cousins in such a pitiful plight that they were too weak to speak.
Casting his own cloak about the nearly naked women, he tenderly bore
them into a thicket, where they could lie in safety while he watched
over them all night, for he did not dare leave them to go in quest of
aid. At dawn he hurried off to a neighboring village and secured
help. There, in the house of a kind man, the poor ladies were cared
for, while their cousin hastened on to apprise the Cid of what had
occurred.

Meantime the Infantes had met Alvar Fanez conveying to the king
another present, and, on being asked where were their wives,
carelessly rejoined they had left them behind. Ill pleased with such a
report, Alvar Fanez and his troops hurried back in quest of the
ladies, but found nothing save traces of blood, which made them
suspect foul play. On discovering what had really happened to the
Cid's daughters, Alvar Fanez hurried on to deliver the present to the
king, and indignantly reported what treatment the Cid's daughters had
undergone at the hands of the bridegrooms the king had chosen for
them, informing him that since he had made the marriage it behooved
him to see justice done. Horrified on hearing what had occurred,
Alfonso summoned the Cortes, sending word to the Cid and to the
Infantes to appear before it at Toledo three months hence.

Meantime the Cid, learning what had befallen his poor girls, hastened
to them, took them home, and, hearing that the king himself would
judg