"Victory and St. Jago!" cried the knight, "Muza is--"

The sentence was left eternally unfinished. The blade of the fallen Moor
had already pierced De Suzoii's horse through a mortal but undefended
part. It fell, bearing his rider with him. A moment, and the two
champions lay together grappling in the dust; in the next, the short
knife which the Moor wore in his girdle had penetrated the Christian's
visor, passing through the brain.

To remount his steed, that remained at band, humbled and motionless, to
appear again amongst the thickest of the fray, was a work no less rapidly
accomplished than had been the slaughter of the unhappy Estevon de Suzon.
But now the fortune of the day was stopped in a progress hitherto so
triumphant to the Moors.

Pricking fast over the plain were seen the glittering horsemen of the
Christian reinforcements; and, at the remoter distance, the royal banner
of Spain, indistinctly descried through volumes of dust, denoted that
Ferdinand himself was advancing to the support of his cavaliers.

The Moors, however, who had themselves received many and mysterious
reinforcements, which seemed to spring up like magic from the bosom of
the earth--so suddenly and unexpectedly had they emerged from copse and
cleft in that mountainous and entangled neighbourhood--were not
unprepared for a fresh foe. At the command of the vigilant Muza, they
drew off, fell into order, and, seizing, while yet there was time, the
vantage-ground which inequalities of the soil and the shelter of the
trees gave to their darts and agile horse, they presented an array which
Ponce de Leon himself, who now arrived, deemed it more prudent not to