ands and
all their possessions rather than live under the rule of the
Mohammedans; and with their wives and children and such little treasure
as they could hurriedly get together, they set out for the north and
found a refuge in the rocky slopes of the Pyrenees. The mountain passes
were not under the control of any of these Christian refugees, and the
Moors were free to advance on the fair fields of southern France so long
as they did not turn aside to molest the Spanish patriots. When they did
make such attack, the fortunes of war were generally against them, and
more than once those modes of mountain warfare were employed which at an
earlier date wrought such great havoc with the hosts of Charlemagne at
the pass of Roncesvalles. In these desperate conflicts, as in the olden
time when the Celtiberians were trying to beat back the power of Rome,
the women were not slow to take their place beside their fathers and
husbands at the first wild call to arms. The old Moorish leader Mousa
had spoken well when he told the kalif at Damascus that the Christians
of Spain were lions in their castles, and the Moors were repeatedly
given ample proof of the wisdom of his observation.

"Covadonga's conquering site
Cradle was of Spanish might,"

so says the old ballad. And what and where was Covadonga? At the far
western extremity of the Pyrenees, where the Sierra Penamerella thrusts
its rugged spur into the Atlantic, was a great mountain cavern,
Covadonga, large enough to shelter as many as three hundred men, and
there had gathered together the strongest of the Christian bands after
the Moorish victory in the south. A long, sinuous valley or ravine,
named Cangas, that is to say, the "shell," sloped down to the foothills
from the mouth of the cave and seemed to present an easy approach to the
stronghold. Pelayo, of the royal line of the Goths, had here been
proclaimed a king in 718, and here was the beginning of that kingdom of
Asturias and Leon which was later to become a mighty one in Spain. The
Moors soon tried to crush this growing power, which was a menace to
their own security. They sent an army under a chief named Al Kama, who
was to win over the recalcitrants by the offer of fair terms, if
possible; and if not, he was to storm their rude citadel and destroy
them utterly. The proposal for a shameful peace was indignantly
refused, and the Moors, confident of victory, and outnumbering the
Christian warriors many times, sw