unto the walls, so as to fight hand to hand with the townsmen. And
Abeniaf waxed proud and despised the people, and when any went to make
complaint before him, and ask justice at his hands, he dishonoured
them, and they were evil entreated by him. And he was like a King,
retired apart, and trobadors and gleemen and masters disported before
him which could do the best, and he took his pleasure. And they of the
town were in great misery, from the Christians who warred upon them
from without, and the famine whereof they died within. Moreover Abeniaf
oppressed them greatly, and he took unto himself all the goods of those
who died, and he made all persons equal, the good and the bad, and took
from all all that he could; and those who gave him nothing he ordered
to be tormented with stripes, and cast into rigorous prisons, till he
could get something from them. And he had no respect neither for
kinsman nor friend. There was but one measure for all, and men cared
nothing now for their possessions, so that the sellers were many and
the buyers none. And with all these miseries the price of food became
exceeding great, for the _cafiz_ of wheat was priced at ninety
_maravedis_, and that of barley at eighty, and that of painick eighty
and five, and that of all pulse sixty, and the _arroba_ of figs seven,
and of honey twenty, and of cheese eighteen, and of carobs sixteen, and
of onions twelve, and the measure of oil twenty: flesh there was none,
neither of beast nor of anything else; but if a beast died, the pound
was worth three _maravedis_. And they were so weak with hunger that the
Christians came to the walls and threw stones in with the hand, and
there was none who had strength to drive them back.

XXII. And the Cid having it at heart to take the town, let make an
engine, and placed it at one of the gates, and it did great hurt both
to the walls and within the town; and the Moors made other engines,
with the which they brake that of the Cid. And the Cid in his anger let