Page:The Coming Race, etc - 1888.djvu/172

158 may be reasonably wholesome, but it is harsh and bitter enough when taken fresh."

At this moment one of the subaltern officers rode up to the marquess, and whispered in his ear.

"Ha!" said Villena, "the Virgin be praised! Sir knights, booty is at hand. Silence! close the ranks."

With that, mounting a little eminence, and shading his eyes with his hand, the marquess surveyed the plain below; and, at some distance, he beheld a hordg of Moorish peasants driving some cattle into a thick copse. The word was hastily given, the troop dashed on, every voice was hushedj and the clatter of mail, and the sound of hoofs, alone broke the delicious silence of the noon-day landscape. Ere they reached the copse, the peasants had disappeared within it. The marquess marshalled his men in a semicircle round the trees, and sent on a detachment to the rear$ to cut off every egress from the wood. This done the troop dashed within; For the first few yards the space was more open than they had anticipated; but the ground soon grew uneven, rugged, and almost precipitous; and the soil, and the interlaced trees, alike forbade any rapid motion to the horse. Don Alonzo de Pacheco, mounted on a charger whose agile and docile limbs had been tutored to every description of warfare, and himself of light weight, and incomparable horsemanship—dashed on before the rest. The trees hid him for a moment; when, suddenly, a wild yell was heard, and as it ceased, uprose the solitary voice of the Spaniard, shouting, "Santiago, y cierra España; St. Jago, and charge, Spain!"

Each cavalier spurred forward; when, suddenly, a shower of darts and arrows rattled on their armour; and up sprung from bush, and reeds, and rocky clift, a number of Moors, and with wild shouts swarmed around the Spaniards.

"Back for your lives!" cried Villena, "we are beset—make for the level ground!"

He turned—spurred from the thicket, and saw the Paynim foe emerging through the glen, line after line of man and horse; each Moor leading his slight and fiery steed by the bridle, and leaping on it as he issued from the wood into the plain. Cased in complete mail, his visor down, his lance in his rest, Villena (accompanied by such of his knights as could disentangle themselves from the Moorish foot) charged upon the foe. A moment of fierce shock passed: on the ground lay many a Moor, pierced through by the Christian lance; and on the other side of the foe, was heard the voice of Villena—"St. Jago to the rescue!" But the brave marquess stood almost alone, save his faithful chamberlain, Solier. Several of his knights