“The time is come, brothers, that we must choose a chief. Long has the noble Pelayo led us. He has now another vengeance to fulfil. The moment is opportune. Onesinda is dead. The butcher Kerim has been summoned to Cordoba. The garrison of Gijon lacks a defender. Let him lead us there as king.”
“As king,” comes ringing from every side of the shrouded summits, which catch the words and bear them from hollow, spanless depths to wild, yawning gorges among the black cliffs, down which green waters pour from the gloomy precincts of the cave where rest the remains of Onesinda.
“Let him be king!” sounds in many tones like a chant of freedom, intoned by these Asturian wilds, which never had felt the foot of mortal foe.
As the voices die away amid a thousand echoes, Pelayo turns and raises his steel helmet, showing the careworn lines of his deeply wrinkled face lit up by no gleam of triumph. Ere he speaks he raises his hand, and points to the deep shadow of the cave.
“We are in the presence of the dead. The shade of Onesinda yet lingers in that body she died to save. Before her corpse, speak softly. Let the dead rest in peace.”
“Then in her presence let us crown him!” cries Friula, taking up the word. “For her sake let the vengeance of the Goths not tarry.”
“We are but as a handful against a nation,” says Recesvinto, “numberless as the sands of the desert; but we will fight for Pelayo and for Spain.”
“For Pelayo and for Spain!” again thunders round. Even the tiny streamlet which cleaves the grass they stand on seems to snatch the words, and goes dancing downwards, bearing them to the world.
“My friends and brothers,” cries Pelayo, rousing himself from the cloud of sorrow into which the death of his sister has plunged him, “I accept your trust. We have been together in many a hard-fought day since the rout of the Guadalete sent us to these wilds. It is no crown I crave, even were it the glorious iron circlet which bound the brows of Alaric, but to lead you in danger and in toil. For this I will be your king. God willing, I will cut off the Moors to the depth of my hatred, root and branch. They shall learn to curse the day when Pelayo was proclaimed. At the cave of Cavadonga a new nation commences, which, with God’s help, shall exceed the old. In the name of Onesinda we will triumph.”
A burst of joyful enthusiasm follows this address. He speaks with a dignity and confidence which inspires his followers with the reckless courage he feels within his breast.