In the tenth century he appeared again when Ramiro II defeated the great Abderahman, and as a result pilgrims innumerable flocked to the shrine of Santiago de Compostella.
Again his white horse led the Spanish cavalry when Fernando was besieging Coimbra in 1058, or thereabout, as one may read in Southey’s Chronicle of the Cid.
At Xeres, in 1237, Alfonso of Castile, with fifteen hundred men, defeated a force seven times larger than his own because all men saw plainly the glorious vision. The Moors fled panic-stricken at the sight. “They could not fight against God.” The instances might be multiplied.—M.]
[552] It was the order—as the reader may remember—given by Cæsar to his followers in his battle with Pompey:
“Adversosque jubet ferro confundere vultus.”
Lucan, Pharsalia, lib. 7, v. 575.
[553] “Equites,” says Paolo Giovio, “unum integrum Centaurorum specie animal esse existimarent.” Elogia Virorum Illustrium (Basil, 1696), lib. 6, p. 229.
[554] Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. iii. p. 11.
[555] “Crean Vras. Reales Altezas por cierto, que esta batalla fué vencida mas por voluntad de Dios que por nras. fuerzas, porque para con quarenta mil hombres de guerra, poca defensa fuera quatrozientos que nosotros eramos.” (Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.—Gomara, Crónica, cap. 20.—Bernal Diaz, Hist. de la Conquista, cap. 35.) It is Las Casas who, regulating his mathematics, as usual, by his feelings, rates the Indian loss at the exorbitant amount cited in the text. “This,” he concludes, dryly, “was the first preaching of the gospel by Cortés in New Spain!” Hist. de las Indias, MS., lib. 3, cap. 119.
[556] Gomara, Crónica, cap. 21, 22.—Carta de Vera Cruz, MS.—Martyr, De Insulis, p. 351.—Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., ubi supra.