Christians, and they resolved as soon as the Almoravides were engaged
in battle with the Cid, that they would issue forth and plunder his
tents. But our Lord Jesus Christ was not pleased that it should be so,
and he ordered it after another guise; for he sent such a rain that
night, with such a wind and flood as no man living remembered, and when
it was day the people of Valencia looked from the wall to see the
banners of the Almoravides and the place where they had encamped, and
behold they could see nothing: and they were full sorrowful, and knew
not what they should do, and they remained in such a state as a woman
in her time of childing, till the hour of tierce, and then came tidings
that the Almoravides had turned back, and would not come unto Valencia.
For the rains and floods had dismayed them, and they thought the waters
would have swept them away, and that the hand of God was against them,
and therefore they turned back. And when the people of Valencia heard
this they held themselves for dead men, and they wandered about the
streets like drunkards, so that a man knew not his neighbour, and they
smeared their faces with black like unto pitch, and they lost all
thought like one who falls into the waves of the sea. And then the
Christians drew nigh unto the walls, crying out unto the Moors with a
loud voice like thunder, calling them false traitors and renegados, and
saying, Give up the town to the Cid Ruydiez, for ye cannot escape from
him. And the Moors were silent, and made no reply because of their
great misery.

XV. Then Abenalfarax, a Moor of Valencia, he who wrote this history in
Arabic, took account of the food which was in the city, to see how long
it could hold out. And he says that the _cafiz_ of wheat was valued at
eleven _maravedis_, and the _cafiz_ of barley at seven _maravedis_, and
that of pulse or other grain at six; and the _arroba_ of honey at
fifteen _dineros_; and the _arroba_ of carobs the third of a