There
he remained, alone and grim--a lion at bay--while his troops slowly
retreated down the Vega, and their trumpets sounded loud signals of
distress, and demands for succour, to such of their companions as might
be within bearing. Villena's armour defied the shafts of the Moors; and
as one after one darted towards him, with whirling cimiter and momentary
assault, few escaped with impunity from an eye equally quick and a
weapon more than equally formidable. Suddenly, a cloud of dust swept
towards him; and Muza, a moment before at the further end of the field,
came glittering through that cloud, with his white robe waving and his
right arm bare. Villena recognised him, set his teeth hard, and putting
spurs to his charger, met the rush. Muza swerved aside, just as the
heavy falchion swung over his head, and by a back stroke of his own
cimiter, shore through the cuirass just above the hip-joint, and the
blood followed the blade. The brave cavaliers saw the danger of their
chief; three of their number darted forward, and came in time to
separate the combatants.

Muza stayed not to encounter the new reinforcement; but speeding across
the plain, was soon seen rallying his own scattered cavalry, and
pouring them down, in one general body, upon the scanty remnant of the
Spaniards.

"Our day is come!" said the good knight Villena, with bitter
resignation. "Nothing is left for us, my friends, but to give up our
lives--an example how Spanish warriors should live and die. May God and
the Holy Mother forgive our sins and shorten our purgatory!"

Just as he spoke, a clarion was heard at a distance and the sharpened
senses of the knights caught the ring of advancing hoofs.

"We are saved!" cried Estevon de Suzon, rising on his stirrups. While
he spoke, the dashing stream of the Moorish horse broke over the little
band; and Estevon beheld bent upon himself the dark eyes and quivering
lip of Muza Ben Abil Gazan. That noble knight had never, perhaps, till
then known fear; but he felt his heart stand still, as he now stood
opposed to that irresistible foe.

"The dark fiend guides his blade!" thought De Suzon; "but I was shriven
but yestermorn." The thought restored his wonted courage; and he spurred
on to meet the cimiter of the Moor.

His assault took Muza by surprise. The Moor's horse stumbled over the
ground, cumbered with the dead and slippery with blood, and his uplifted
cimiter could not do more than break the force of the