"My good crossbow," said Juan, descending towards the road, "aid my revenge as thou hast always aided it!"
The leader of the bandits shot an arrow, and Sancha uttered a cry of agony and fell, mortally wounded.
At the same time immense columns of smoke and flame arose from the wood, and horrible cries, becoming weaker by degrees, were heard proceeding from the place where the fire had commenced.
Those cries ceased altogether in a few minutes, and an hour after there were neither chestnut trees, bushes, nor anything else left but heaps of glowing ashes and a few calcined stones, where the bandits had enclosed Bellido Dolfos in the hollow tree.
The following morning was as beautiful as that which had preceded it: the sky was azure, the air was fall of perfumes, the birds were singing in the trees, and everywhere were exhibited the animation and pleasure of those who were returning from the festivities that had taken place at Carrion.
The Cid, Ximena, the Infanta, Doña Teresa, Martin, Beatrice, Rui-Venablos, Gonzalo, Alvar, and, last, Fernan and Mayor, were travelling together along the road to Burgos; all joyful, all content, all happy, except the two last-mentioned, who had had a serious disagreement on that morning. Fernan, remembering the pretty girls whom he had seen on the previous day at the festival, was bitterly lamenting the tyranny of matrimony, which, among Christians, does not permit more than one wife, when, according to his infallible calculations, two, at least, should be allowed to each man. Those complaints and those calculations naturally irritated Mayorica; Fernan cursed the wrong-headedness and stupidity of women, of his wife especially, and the quarrel ended in scratches and blows, Alvar receiving some of them as he had endeavoured to pacify the combatants.
Some hours after they had left Carrion, on arriving at a cross-roads, they heard the sounds of a lute, which an old man, seated by the wayside, was playing, and, at the same time, was asking charity from the passers-by.
The Cid and Ximena sent one of their servants to give alms to the mendicant, and Guillen and Teresa did the same. The old man began, just then, to sing a ballad which commenced thus—
"Cavaliers of Leon,
Castilian cavaliers!
Haughty with the strong,
But gentle with the weak."
"By St. James of Compostela!" exclaimed the Cid, pulling up Babieca when he heard those lines. "It is the old man who, in the name of God, told me on the road to Zamora that I should conquer in all my battles, and that my honour and my prosperity would ever increase."