was despatched with seven hundred horse to seize
Cordova. Lying hid till darkness came on, Mughīth
stealthily approached the city. A storm of hail, which
the Moslems regarded as a special favour of Providence,
muffled the clatter of their horses' hoofs. A shep-
herd pointed out a breach in the walls, and here the
Moors determined to make the assault. One of them,
more active than the rest, climbed a fig-tree which
grew beneath the breach, and thence, springing on
to the wall, flung the end of a long turban to the
others, and pulled them up after him. They instantly
surprised the guard, and threw open the gates to the
main body of the invaders, and the town was captured
with hardly a blow. The governor and garrison took
refuge in a convent, where for three months they
were closely beleaguered. When at length they sur-
rendered, Cordova was left in the keeping of the
Jews, who had proved themselves staunch allies of the
Moslems in the campaign, and who ever afterwards
enjoyed great consideration at the hands of the con-
querors. The Moors admitted them to their intimacy,
and, until very late times, never persecuted them as the
Gothic priests had done. Wherever the arms of the
Saracens penetrated, there we shall always find the
Jews in close pursuit: while the Arab fought, the Jew
trafficked, and when the fighting was over, Jew and
Moor and Persian joined in that cultivation of learning
and philosophy, arts and sciences, which preēminently
distinguished the rule of the Saracens in the Middle
Ages.

With the coöperation of the Jews, and the terror
of the Spaniards, Tārik's conquest proceeded apace.

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