Legends of the conquest of Spain Author:Washington Irving Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. OF THE LOVES OF RODERICK AND THE PRINCESS ELYATA. As yet the heart of Roderick, occupied by the struggles of his early life, by warlike enterp... more »rises, and by the inquietudes of newly- gotten power, had been insensible to the charms of women ; but in the present voluptuous calm the amorous propensities of his nature assumed their sway. There are divers accounts of the youthful beauty who first found favour in his eyes, and was elevated by him to the throne. We follow, in our legend, the details of an .Arabian chronicler, authenticated by a Spanish poet. t Let those who dispute our facts produce better authority for their contradiction. Perdida de Espana por Abulcacim Tarif Aben- tarique, lib. i., f Lope de Vega. Among the few fortified places that had not been dismantled by Don Roderick was the ancient city of Denia, situated on the Mediterranean coast, and defended on a rock-built castle that overlooked the sea. The Alcayde of the castle, with many of the people of Denia, was one day on his knees in the chapel, imploring the Virgin to allay a tempest which was strewing the coast with wrecks, when a sentinel brought word that a Moorish cruiser was standing for the land. The Alcayde gave orders to ring the alarm bells, light signal fires on the hill tops, and rouse the country; for the coast was subject to cruel maraudings from the Barbary cruisers. In a little while the horsemen of the neighbourhood were seen pricking along the beach, armed with such weapons as they could find ; and the Alcayde and his scanty garrison descended from the hill. In the meantime the Moorish bark came rolling and pitching towards the land. As it drew near, the rich carving and gilding with whichit was decorated, its silken bandaroles, and banks of crimson oars, showed it to...« less