Such a fine career as those cavalcades had among the marvellous cities of the Asiatic Saracens and of the Spanish Moors! What a quantity of skulls to cleave, of gold to bring home! It was thus that the overflow of force and imagination was discharg was no foolish affair of a random shot or clumsy bullet, in the midst of a well-ordered manouvre. Then one encountered all the hazards, the unforeseen, of knight-errantry; the senses were all awake; the arms wrought and the body was a soldier; Gaston was killed as a private horseman in ambuscade, with the bishop of Huesca.
That which pleases me in history is the minor circumstances, the details of character. A mere scrap of a phrase indicates a revolution in the faculties and passions; great events are contained in it at their ease, as in their cause. Here in the life of Gaston is one of those words. The day that Jerusalem was taken, quarter had been granted to a large number of Mussulmans. “But the next day, the rest, displeased at seeing that there were any infidels alive, mounted upon the roofs of the temple, and massacred and mangled all the Saracens, both men and women.” * There was neither reasoning nor deliberation; at the sight of a Mussulman’s dress, their blood mounted in wrath to their face, and they sprang forward, like lions or butchers, struck them down and dismembered them. Lope de Vega, an antique Christian, a severe Spaniard, renewed this savage and fanatical sentiment:
* The following fact is from the Siege of Antioch: “Many of
our enemies died, and some of the prisoners were led before
the gate of the city, and there their heads were cut off, in
order to discourage those who remained in the city.”
Garcia Tello. Father, why have you not brought a Moor for me to see him!
The elder Tello; (showing him the prisoners.) Well, Garcia, those are Moors.
Garcia. What? Those are Moors? They look like men.
Old Tello. And indeed they are men.
Garcia. They do not deserve to be.
Old Tello. And why?
Garcia. Because they believe neither in God nor in the Virgin Mary; the sight of them makes my blood boil, Father.