all the attractions that the thought of trying something new always has for children. Besides, he had great respect for his sister's judgment.
"Well, let us be crusaders," he said, "and perhaps we need not be martyrs, sister. I don't think that would be so very pleasant, do you? Who knows; perhaps we may be victorious crusaders and conquer the Infidels just as did Ruy Diaz the Cid.[1] See here, Theresa; I have my sword and you can take your cross, and we can have such a nice crusade, and may be the infidel Moors will run away from us just as they did from the Cid and leave us their cities and their gold and treasure? Don't you remember what mother read us, how the Cid won Castelon, with its silver and its gold?"
And the little fellow spouted most valiantly this portion of the famous poem of the exploits of the Cid (the Poema del Cid), with the martial spirit of which stirring rhyme his romantic mother had filled her children:
"Smite, smite, my knights, for mercy's sake—on boldly to the war;
I am Ruy Diaz of Bivar, the Cid Campeador!
Three hundred lances then were couched, with pennons streaming gay;
- ↑ The Cid was the great hero of Spanish romance. The stories of his valor have been the joy of Spaniards, old and young, for centuries. Cid is a corruption of the Moorish word seyd or said, and means master.
