"It would be difficult to know what the Cid had not to do with and where he did not go," returned de Nevada. "He was a mighty man of valour, according to his lights: also a great barbarian. In those days we might all have been the same. In my own mind, I have always likened him to the English Cromwell; and if Cromwell was in any way better than he, it is that he lived six centuries later. They were equally determined and unscrupulous. What a wonderful passage is that in the history of England! But the Cid had much to do with Valencia. He came here in 1094, and after a siege of twenty months took the town. It is remarkable how retribution follows a man, as surely as shadow follows the substance. 'Be sure your sin will find you out.' Never was truer proverb What says Shakespeare?" continued the priest, turning to us:
| "'Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, |
| The fateful shadows that hang by us still.' |
"I don't know that I quote correctly, and my English is barbarous," he laughed. "Never could I master that fine language; perhaps for the reason that I never dwelt long enough in your country. Few and short have my visits been. It was in 1095 that the Cid took Valencia. Ibn Jehaf the murderer was on the throne, having killed Yahya, whom Alonso VI. had placed there. This act brought the Cid down upon them. The first thing he did was to burn Jehaf alive on the great square that you will see to-morrow when you go to the Archbishop: act worthy of the tyrant. He ruled here for five years. His will was law; it was a small reign of terror. Then he died, and his faithful wife Ximena endeavoured to hold the reins. Those were not times when a woman could rule easily, and in 1101 the Moors brought hers to an end and banished her from the province. It is said that when the Cid captured Valencia he took his wife and daughter to a height to show them the richness of the country; and promised his favourite daughter that if she pleased him in her marriage that fair prospect from the boundaries of the Saguntum Hills on the north to the confines of the sea on the east should be her dowry: a promise never to be fulfilled. Within three years the daughter died unwedded; a death so violent that it is said to have struck a death-blow to the Cid, and to have brought home to him many of his perfidious acts. Certain it is that he was never the same man afterwards. Another two years brought his own life to a close. But, madame, you are beguiling me into a history, and turning the old priest into a schoolmaster."
Our fair hostess laughed.
"You make me your debtor," she replied. "I shall take greater interest in what I see to-morrow, and look at everything through the eyes of the past. Has the Archbishop any relics of the Cid?"
"Not only of the Cid, but of many other historical persons and events," said de Nevada. "You must especially notice the library with its fine collection of books. I may be there at the moment, and if so will promote myself to the honour of Librarian-in-chief to Countess Pedro de la Torre."
"Beware!" laughed madame. "Countess Pedro has a thirst for knowledge. Your office will be no sinecure."
"My labour of love will at least equal madame's diligence, though the climate is hardly favourable to very hard work," smiled the priest. "Even Nature conspires to indolence in the people. The ground brings forth abundantly, and almost unaided. The Moors thought it an earthly paradise—as it is. I am not sure but they considered it the scene of the first paradise. Heaven, they said, was suspended immediately above, and a portion of heaven had fallen to earth and formed Valencia. To the sick and sorrowing it is a land of consolation. In its balmy airs—far more healing than those of Italy—the former recover strength; in the brilliance of its sunshine, the blueness of its skies, the splendour of its flowers and vegetation, the troubled mind finds peace and repose."
"Its system of irrigation—to descend to the commonplace," laughed de la Torre—"is perfect. Does the council still sit in the Apostles' Gateway?"
"Indeed it does," replied the priest. "And far from being commonplace, the idea to me, surrounded by its halo of the past, is full of picturesque romance."