the lances of horsemen as apt at tilling the soil as at capering in
tournaments with an elegance never equalled by any chevaliers of the
North. He could see the court of Valencia, with the romantic gardens of
Ruzafa, where poets sang mournful strophes over the wane of the
Valencian Moor, while beautiful maidens listened from behind the
blossoming rose-bushes. And then the catastrophe came. In a torrent of
steel, barbarians swept down from the arid hills of Aragon to appease
their hunger in the bounty of the plain--the _almogávares_--naked, wild,
bloodthirsty savages, who never washed. And as allies of this horde,
bankrupt Christian noblemen, their worn-out lands mortgaged to the
Israelite, but good cavalrymen, withal, armored, and with dragonwings on
their helmets; and among the Christians, adventurers of various tongues,
soldiers of fortune out for plunder and booty in the name of the Cross
--the "black sheep" of every Christian family. And they seized the great
garden of Valencia, installed themselves in the Moorish palaces, called
themselves counts and marquises, and with their swords held that
privileged country for the King of Aragon, while the conquered Saracens
continued to fertilize it with their toil.

"Valencia, Valencia, Valencia! Thy walls are ruins, thy gardens
grave-yards, thy sons slaves unto the Christian ..." groaned the poet,
covering his eyes with his cloak. And Rafael could see, passing like
phantoms before his eyes, leaning forward on the necks of small, sleek,
sinewy horses, that seemed to fly over the ground, their legs
horizontal, their nostrils belching smoke, the Moors, the real people of
Valencia, conquered, degenerated by the very abundance of their soil,
abandoning their gardens before the onrush of brutal, primitive
invaders, speeding on their way toward the unending night of African
barbarism. At this eternal exile of the first Valencians who left to
oblivion and decay a civilization, the last vestiges of which today