The Gothic chiefs gather round him as the sheep round the faithful shepherd when the howl of the wolf is borne upon the wind. No lack of valour is visible upon their dark brows, and looks of deadly defiance shoot from eye to eye as they hasten to bind the shields they carry together, place Pelayo on them, and bear him three times round the face of the cave of Cavadonga, the rest following with bare heads and naked swords.
The Moslems of Gijon, when they heard that the fugitive Goths had elected a king in the Asturian mountains, laughed with scorn. But he soon made his presence felt by frequent incursions, causing great havoc among the Moors.
At length he collected a sufficient force to meet them in a pitched battle. The great victory of Caincas followed, and ere the eighteen years were passed during which Pelayo ruled over the Goths, the garrison of Gijon surrendered, and El Conde de Gijon was one of the titles he bore upon his shield.
In the solitude of the Asturias the cave of Cavadonga is still to be found; the very spot or campo before it on which Pelayo was carried on the shields of his followers, is somewhat vulgarised by a commemorative obelisk erected by the Duc de Montpensier. The valley, a perfect cul-de-sac, ascends abruptly to the site. Pelayo lies within the small church of Saint Eulalia, near at hand at Abaima. A simple stone is engraved with his name and a carved sword of Roman pattern.
It was he who dealt the first serious blow to the invaders. From that time they grew cautious in their approaches to the north.
Again the Goths became a name in the old kingdom. At Oviedo, south of Gijon, the new dynasty took root, concealed at first in the obscure reigns of Friula, Orelio, Ramiro, and Ordoño, calling themselves Kings of Galicia and Oviedo, up to Alonso the Second, surnamed “the Chaste,” 791, when Leon came to be both the court and capital of the kingdom of the Goths.
CHAPTER XVI
Bernardo del Carpio
HE city of Leon is a very ancient place, old even in the days of the Romans. Around it circles the line of walls spared by Witica when he levelled the defences throughout Spain.
It is entered by four gates opening into four wide streets, crossing each other at right angles. Many have been the changes, but there still stand the city walls, substantially the same, the huge stones worked into coarse rubble, capped by frequent towers with tapia turrets from which the eye ranges over the leafy plains of mountain-bound Galicia.