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Nothing backward, the archbishop followed the king. Fernan Garcia, one of the king’s cavaliers, urged him to wait for aid, but Alfonso, commending himself to God and the Virgin, spurred forward and plunged into the thick of the fight. And ever as he rode, by his side rode the archbishop, wearing his chasuble and bearing aloft the cross. The Moorish troops, who had been jeering at the king and the cross-bearing prelate, drew back before this impetuous assault, which was given force by the troops who crowded in to the rescue of the king. The Moors soon yielded to the desperate onset, and were driven back in wild disarray.

This was the beginning of the end. Treason in the Moorish ranks came to the Christian aid. Some of Mohammed’s force, who hated him for having cruelly slain their chief, turned and fled. The breaking of their centre opened a way for the Spaniards to the living fortress which guarded the imperial tent, and on this dense line of sable lancers the Christian cavalry madly charged.

In vain they sought to break that serried line of steel. Some even turned their horses and tried to back them in, but without avail. Many fell in the attempt. The Moslem ranks seemed impervious. In the end one man did what a host had failed to perform. A single cavalier, Alvar Nunez de Lara, stole in between the negroes and the camels, in some way passed the chains, and with a cheer of triumph raised his banner in the interior of the line. A second and a third followed in his track. The gap between the camels and the guard widened. Dozens, hundreds rushed to join their daring leader. The camels were loosened and dispersed; the negroes, attacked front and rear, perished or fled; the living wall that guarded the emperor was gone, and his sacred person was in peril.

Mohammed was dazed. His lips still repeated from the Koran, “God alone is true, and Satan is a betrayer,” but terror was beginning to stir the roots of his hair. An Arab rode up on a swift mare, and, springing to the ground, cried,–

“Mount and flee, O king. Not thy steed but my mare. She comes of the noblest breed, and knows not how to fail her rider in his need. All is lost! Mount and flee!”

All was lost, indeed. Mohammed scrambled up and set off at the best speed of the Arabian steed, followed by his troops in a panic of terror. The rout was complete. While day continued the Christian horsemen followed and struck, until the bodies of slain Moors lay so thick upon the plain that there was scarce room for man or horse to pass. Then Archbishop Rodrigo, who had done so much towards the victory, stood before Mohammed’s tent and in a loud voice intoned the Te Deum laudamus, the soldiers uniting in the sacred chant of victory.

The archbishop, who became the historian of this decisive battle, speaks of two hundred thousand Moslem slain. We cannot believe it so many, despite the historian’s statement. Twenty-five Christians alone fell. This is as much too small as the other estimate is too large. But, whatever the losses, it was a great and glorious victory, and the spoils of war that fell to the victors were immense. Gold and silver were there in abundance; horses, camels, and wagons in profusion; arms of all kinds, commissary stores in quantities. So vast was the number of lances strewn on the ground that the conquering army used only these for firewood in their camp, and did not burn the half of them.

King Alfonso, with a wise and prudent liberality, divided the spoil among his troops and allies, keeping only the glory of the victory for himself. Mohammed’s splendid tent was taken to Rome to adorn St. Peter’s, and the captured banners were sent to the cities of Spain as evidences of the great victory. For himself, the king reserved a fine emerald, which he placed in the centre of his shield. Ever since that brilliant day in Spanish annals, the sixteenth of July has been kept as a holy festival, in which the captured banners are carried in grand procession, to celebrate the “Triumph of the Cross.”

The supposed miracle of the shepherd was not the only one which the monastic writers saw in the victorious event. It was said that a red cross, like that of Calatrava, appeared in the sky, inspiriting the Christians and dismaying their foes; and that the sight of the Virgin banner borne by the king’s standard-bearer struck the Moslems with terror. It was a credulous age, one in which reputed miracles could be woven out of the most homely and every-day material.

Death soon came to the leaders in the war. Mohammed, sullen with defeat, hurried to Morocco, where he shut himself up in gloomy seclusion, and died–or was poisoned–before the year’s end. Alfonso died two years later. The Christians did not follow up their victory with much energy, and the Moslems still held a large section of Spain, but their power had culminated and with this signal defeat began its decline. Step by step they yielded before the Christian advance, though nearly three centuries more passed before they lost their final hold on Spain.