Muza made no reply, but left the rein of his charger on his neck; the
noble animal understood the signal, and with a short impatient cry rushed
forward at full speed. Alonzo met the charge with his falchion upraised,
and his whole body covered with his shield; the Moor bent--the Spaniards
raised a shout--Muza seemed stricken from his horse. But the blow of the
heavy falchion had not touched him: and, seemingly without an effort, the
curved blade of his own cimiter, gliding by that part of his antagonist's
throat where the helmet joins the cuirass, passed unresistingly and
silently through the joints; and Alonzo fell at once, and without a
groan, from his horse--his armour, to all appearance, unpenetrated, while
the blood oozed slow and gurgling from a mortal wound.

"Allah il Allah!" shouted Muza, as he joined his friends; "Lelilies!
Lelilies!" echoed the Moors; and ere the Christians recovered their
dismay, they were engaged hand to hand with their ferocious and swarming
foes. It was, indeed, fearful odds; and it was a marvel to the Spaniards
how the Moors had been enabled to harbour and conceal their numbers in so
small a space. Horse and foot alike beset the company of Villena,
already sadly reduced; and while the infantry, with desperate and savage
fierceness, thrust themselves under the very bellies of the chargers,
encountering both the hoofs of the steed and the deadly lance of the
rider, in the hope of finding a vulnerable place for the sharp Moorish
knife,--the horsemen, avoiding the stern grapple of the Spaniard
warriors, harrassed them by the shaft and lance,--now advancing, now
retreating, and performing, with incredible rapidity, the evolutions of
Oriental cavalry. But the life and soul of his party was the indomitable
Muza. With a rashness which seemed to the superstitious Spaniards like
the safety of a man protected by magic, he spurred his ominous black barb
into the very midst of the serried phalanx which Villena endeavoured to