Chapter XXVIII: Don Rodrigo (the Cid) Kills the Conde de Gormez

It was the hottest hour of the day, when the citizens took their _siesta_; the sun poured down in splendour on the white walls, absorbing the shade; the river was dried up.

No one had witnessed the encounter. But what did that matter? Conde Gormez would be sure to publish it abroad. Oh, shame and grief! Don Diego was for ever dishonoured!

Just as, with wavering steps, he was addressing himself to seek his horse where he had left him, he heard the clank of spurs upon the pavement, and his son Rodrigo appeared.

“Well met!” cried he, clutching his arm and gazing up wistfully into his beaming face; “the saints have sent you.”

“May their blessing be ever on you, my honoured father,” is the reply, as he stops to kiss his hand. “I was hastening home to tell you that the marriage is fixed, and that the king, Don Fernando, gives away the bride. But, father, are you ill?” noting his blanched aspect as his father leaned heavily upon him.

“Rodrigo,” he whispers, and with an unutterable expression of despair he looks into his eyes, “are you brave?”

“Sir!” answers Rodrigo, drawing back his arm, “any other but you should feel it on the instant.”

“Oh, blessed anger!” replies Don Diego, watching the deep flush mounting on his face, “you are indeed my son. My blood flows in your veins. I was like that once. Prompt, ready, dexterous. Rodrigo, will you avenge me?”

“For what?” asks Rodrigo, more and more perplexed.

“For that,” returns Don Diego--and as he speaks his voice gathers strength and he draws himself back, and stands upright before him--“which touches your honour as nearly as my own. A blow, a cruel blow! Had I been of your age, his blood would have wiped it out. But it is not with swords such an outrage is avenged. Go--die--or slay him. But I warn you, he is a hero. I have seen him in the front of a hundred battles, making a rampart of his body against the foe. He is----”

“Tell me, father, tell me!” exclaims Don Rodrigo, breathlessly following his father’s words.

“The father of Ximena.”

“The----”

No sound came to his white lips. As if struck by a mortal blow, Rodrigo staggered back against the sculptured pilasters of the Ayuntamiento.

“Speak not, my son,” says Don Diego, laying his hand upon him. “I know how much you love her. But he who accepts infamy is unworthy to live. I have told you vengeance is in your hand, for me, for you. Be worthy of your father, who was once a valiant knight. Go, I say,--rush--fly,--as though the earth burned under your footsteps! Nor let me behold you until you have washed out the stain!”

* * * * *

The chronicles say that, insolent as he was, the Conde de Gormez had already repented of his furious act. Certain of the wrath of the king, who greatly esteemed Don Diego Laynez, and shrinking from the reproaches of his daughter, he was preparing to leave the city when he came upon the Cid.

They met beside the banks of the Arlanzon, which still presents the sandy emptiness of an ill-fed river, under a screen of plane-trees whispering to the summer wind, the space without thronged with hidalgos and cheerful citizens in ample cloaks and _capas_ muffled up to the eyes, spite of the heat, in true Castilian fashion.

As Don Rodrigo, with lofty stride, approached, the Conde stood still, guessing his errand.

Of all the knights of Castile, Don Gormez was a palm higher than the rest. A dark defiant head was firmly set on massive shoulders, youthful in aspect for his period of middle age, an approved and complete warrior at all points, and full to the brim, as one may say, of the chivalric traditions of the time.

Rodrigo beside him looked a slender youth; the down was on his cheek, the lustre of boyhood in his eyes, now dilated with fury as he drew near.

“Sir Conde,” he says shortly, as he doffs his cap, to which the other responds with a haughty smile, “I ask two words of you.”

“Speak!” is the Conde’s answer, twirling his moustache.

“Tell me, do you know Don Diego, my father?”

“Yes,” in a loud tone. “Why ask?”

“Speak lower. Listen. Do you know that in his time he was the honour of the land, brave as yourself? You know it?”

Nearer and nearer Rodrigo came as he spoke, until their faces almost touched.

“I care not,” is the answer, with a sneer.

“Stand back in the shade of that thicket and I will teach you,” roars the Cid, his rage bursting in all bounds.

“Presumptuous boy!” exclaims the Conde with ineffable scorn; yet, spite of his affected contempt, the words have stung him, and he turns crimson.

“I am young, it is true,” answers Rodrigo, “but once so were you. Valour goes not by the number of our years.”

“You--_you_ dare to measure yourself with me!” cries he, losing all control in the climax of his rage.

“I do. I well know your prowess. You have always prevailed, but to him who fights for his father nothing is impossible. Come on, Sir Conde,” drawing his sword.

“Seek not so vainly to end your days,” answers Gormez, laying his hand on the hilt of his weapon. “Your death will be no credit to my sword.”

“Mock me not by this insulting pity,” answers Rodrigo, “or by God I shall think it is _you_ who are tired of living, not I.” And as he speaks he strikes the Conde de Gormez with the flat of his sword.

The attack, on both sides is furious. Rodrigo grows cold with the thirst of vengeance; the Conde burns to cut off a life which rivals with his own.

But the sure aim of Rodrigo and his strength prevail. With one stroke of his good sword Tizona, he fells Gormez to the earth and plunges his weapon straight into his heart. Red with his life-blood he draws it out to bear it as a trophy to his father.

“Die! Lord of Gormez,” are his words, wiping his brow, as he watches the blood slowly ooze from the wound to mix itself, a sinister stream, with the sand. “Alas! had your courtesy equalled your knighthood and your birth, you might have lived to see your child’s children mine. Farewell, oh my enemy”; and he stoops reverently to cover the face of the dead with his mantle, reading the while with horror in the still set features the softer lineaments of his Ximena. “Alas!”--and his countenance darkens and he heaves a great sigh--“I am but Ruy Diaz, your lover, the most wretched of men! Oh! that I could lie there dead, instead of him! Ximena, oh, my love, will you ever forgive me?”

And sorrowing thus he turns away by intricate windings to mount the hill to the Suelos where Don Diego awaits him, seated in the hall, the food lying on the table before him untouched.

“Behold!” cries he, unsheathing the bloody sword. “The tongue which insulted you, Don Diego, is no longer a tongue; the hand which struck you is no longer a hand. You are avenged, oh, my father, and I----”

He could not continue.

With a loud laugh Don Diego rose up, taking in his hand the blood-stained sword and placing it beside him on the board below the salt; then turned to embrace Rodrigo.

He spoke never a word, but stood like one stupefied, his arms folded on his breast, his eyes fixed on the ground.

“Son of my heart,” says Don Diego, “I pray you turn and eat. Mourn not what you have done. My youth comes back to me in you. Greater than me shall you be, and win back broad lands from the Moors, and be rich like a king, when I am low in the dust. Take the head of the board, Rodrigo. Higher than myself is the place of the son who has brought the sword of Conde Gormez to his Suelos. The place of honour is yours, and I will pledge you with wine.” And as he speaks the old man rises, and taking Rodrigo by the hand places him above him, and with his own hand serves him with meat and drink.

Poetry and the drama in latter days have much dealt with the story of the Cid, and altogether altered it from its ancient simplicity.

Not so the chronicles, which depict the facts in the language of the time very straightforwardly, specially the chronicle of King Alfonso of Castile, surnamed _El Sabio_, written soon after the Cid’s death. If not penned by the hand of the king himself, at least it was largely dictated by him, and not at all partial, for as King of Castile he deeply resented the rebellion of the Cid against his father Alonso.