Lampagie, too weary, cannot follow them, nor can Abi-Nessa abandon
Lampagie. In the twinkling of an eye they are surrounded by foes. The
chronicler Isidore of Bdja says that Abi-Nessa, in order not to fall
alive into their hands, flung himself from top to bottom of the rocks;
and an Arab historian relates that he took sword in hand, and fell
pierced with twenty lance-thrusts whilst fighting in defence of her he
loved. They cut off his head, which was forthwith carried to Abdel-
Rhaman, to whom they led away prisoner the hapless daughter of Eudes.
She was so lovely in the eyes of Abdel-Rhaman, that he thought it his
duty to send her to Damascus, to the commander of the faithful, esteeming
no other mortal worthy of her." (Fauriel, _Historie de la Gaulle,_ &c.,
t. III., p. 115.)

Abdel-Rhaman, at ease touching the interior of Spain, reassembled the
forces he had prepared for his expedition, marched towards the Pyrenees
by Pampeluna, crossed the summit become so famous under the name of Port
de Roncevaux, and debouched by a single defile and in a single column,
say the chroniclers, upon Gallic Vasconia, greater in extent than French
Biscay now is. M. Fauriel, after scrupulous examination, according to
his custom, estimates the army of Abdel-Rhaman, whether Mussulman
adventurers flocking from all parts, or Arabs of Spain, at from
sixty-five to seventy thousand fighting men. Duke Eudes made a gallant
effort to stop his march and hurl him back towards the mountains; but
exhausted, even by certain small successes, and always forced to retire,
fight after fight, up to the approaches to Bordeaux, he crossed the
Garonne, and halted on the right bank of the river, to cover the city.
Abdel-Rhaman who had followed him closely, forced the passage of the
river, and a battle was fought, in which the Aquitanians were defeated
with immense loss. "God alone," says Isidore of Beja, "knows the number
of those who fell." The battle gained, Abdel-Rhaman took Bordeaux by
assault and delivered it over to his army. The plunder, to believe the
historians of the conquerors, surpassed all that had been preconceived
of the wealth of the vanquished: "The most insignificant soldier," say
they, "had for his share plenty of topazes, jacinths, and emeralds, to
say nothing of gold, a somewhat vulgar article under the circumstances."
What appears certain is that, at their departure from Bordeaux, the
Arabs were so laden with booty that their marc