At length the Moors gave way and fled for the gates of Xerez; being hotly pursued they stumbled over the bodies of the slain, and thus many were taken prisoners. At the gates the press was so great that they killed each other in striving to enter; and the Christian sword made slaughter under the walls.
The Christians gathered spoils of the field, after this victory, until they were fatigued with collecting them, and the precious articles found in the Moorish tents were beyond calculation. Their camp-fires were supplied with the shafts of broken lances, and they found ample use for the cords and osier bands which the Moors had provided to bind their expected captives.
It was a theme of much marvel and solemn meditation that of all the distinguished cavaliers who entered into this battle, not one was lost, excepting the same Pero Miguel who refused to pardon his adversary. What became of him no one could tell. The last that was seen of him he was in the midst of the enemy, cutting down and overturning, for he was a valiant warrior and of prodigious strength. When the battle and pursuit were at an end, and the troops were recalled by sound of trumpet, he did not appear. His tent remained empty. The field of battle was searched, but he was nowhere to be found. Some supposed that, in his fierce eagerness to make havoc among the Moors, he had entered the gates of the city and there been slain; but his fate remained a mere matter of conjecture, and the whole was considered an awful warning that no Christian should go into battle without pardoning those who asked forgiveness.
“On this day,” says the worthy Agapida, “it pleased Heaven to work one of its miracles in favor of the Christian host; for the blessed Santiago appeared in the air on a white horse, with a white banner in one hand and a sword in the other, accompanied by a band of cavaliers in white. This miracle,” he adds, “was beheld by many men of verity and worth,” probably the monks and priests who accompanied the army; “as well as by numbers of the Moors, who declared that the greatest slaughter was effected by those sainted warriors.”
It may be as well to add that Fray Antonio Agapida is supported in this marvelous fact by Rodrigo, Archbishop of Toledo, one of the most learned and pious men of the age, who lived at the time and records it in his chronicle. It is a matter, therefore, placed beyond the doubts of the profane.
Note by the Editor.—A memorandum at the foot of this page of the author’s manuscript, reminds him to “notice death of Queen Beatrix about this time,” but the text continues silent on the subject. According to Mariana, she died in the city of Toro in 1235, before the siege of Cordova. Another authority gives the 5th of November, 1236, as the date of the decease, which would be some months after the downfall of that renowned city. Her body was interred in the nunnery of Las Huelgas at Burgos, and many years afterwards removed to Seville, where reposed the remains of her husband.
