Don Fernando held out his hand to Rodrigo Diaz, rejoiced to know that he had anticipated his own wish.
"Rodrigo," he said, "you always divine what my heart feels. Yes, the traitor Ben-Amet must expiate with his blood that of Don Alfonso; but we must economise as much as possible our own. We have already lost very many brave cavaliers in the assaults which we have attempted, and we must now endeavour to think of some plan to shelter ourselves to some extent from the arrows of our enemies."
"Our shields," said the Cid, "are not large enough to protect our bodies from the arrows of the besieged; it seems to me that it would be a good plan to enlarge them by attaching to them wooden boards; I heard my father say that such a thing has been done at times."
"Yes, yes," said the king, "we shall do that."
And as Martin Antolinez, Alvar Minaya, and the other cavaliers who were present approved, as well as the king, of the plan of the Cid, whose men were the first that offered to scale the wall of the Mosque, they began at once to get the shields enlarged in the manner indicated.
At the dawn of day the Cid and his men approached the wall of the Mosque as quietly as possible, provided with scaling ladders and the enlarged shields. At a signal, that had been arranged beforehand, the ladders were placed against the walls; the Moors, however, discovered this, and began to rain down a shower of arrows. The Christian cavaliers, who preceded the other scalers of the walls, also cast a large number of javelins, which caused great slaughter amongst the defenders; however, as the shields protected the bodies of the besiegers, they did not fall back, but mounted the ladders, and were very near its summit, notwithstanding the furious efforts which Ben-Amet and his soldiers used in order to keep them back.
"St. James of Compostela!" cried the Cid, as at the assault of Cea; all who followed him repeated the cry with enthusiasm, and all rushed on to the top of the wall. Then followed a sanguinary fight; horrible, ferocious, body to body, arm to arm; dead bodies fell in all directions, blood ran in torrents; those who were guarding other portions of the walls rushed to the defence, but at last the Christian army pressed forward into the citadel, through the opening made by the Cid and those under his command, and Ben-Amet was in the power of Don Fernando.
"Sire," then cried out Rodrigo Diaz, "I ask a favour of you; enough of blood has already been shed in Viseo, pardon the vanquished, let not our swords be used against the defenceless inhabitants of the town."
"I grant your request, good Cid," responded Don Fernando. "They shall not be used; let no one dare to kill man or woman."
The soldiers were preparing to put to the sword the inhabitants of the place, but refrained, respecting the command of the king.