Legends and Tales | Page 7

of
acquiring some knowledge of the Great Enemy's plans not the least
trifling object. And if the truth must be told, there was a certain
decorum about the stranger that interested the Padre. Though well
aware of the Protean shapes the Arch-Fiend could assume, and though
free from the weaknesses of the flesh, Father Jose was not above the
temptations of the spirit. Had the Devil appeared, as in the case of the
pious St. Anthony, in the likeness of a comely damsel, the good Father,
with his certain experience of the deceitful sex, would have whisked
her away in the saying of a paternoster. But there was, added to the
security of age, a grave sadness about the stranger,--a thoughtful
consciousness as of being at a great moral disadvantage,--which at once
decided him on a magnanimous course of conduct.
The stranger then proceeded to inform him, that he had been diligently
observing the Holy Father's triumphs in the valley. That, far from being
greatly exercised thereat, he had been only grieved to see so
enthusiastic and chivalrous an antagonist wasting his zeal in a hopeless
work. For, he observed, the issue of the great battle of Good and Evil
had been otherwise settled, as he would presently show him. "It wants
but a few moments of night," he continued, "and over this interval of
twilight, as you know, I have been given complete control. Look to the
West."
As the Padre turned, the stranger took his enormous hat from his head,
and waved it three times before him. At each sweep of the prodigious

feather, the fog grew thinner, until it melted impalpably away, and the
former landscape returned, yet warm with the glowing sun. As Father
Jose gazed, a strain of martial music arose from the valley, and issuing
from a deep canyon, the good Father beheld a long cavalcade of gallant
cavaliers, habited like his companion. As they swept down the plain,
they were joined by like processions, that slowly defiled from every
ravine and canyon of the mysterious mountain. From time to time the
peal of a trumpet swelled fitfully upon the breeze; the cross of Santiago
glittered, and the royal banners of Castile and Aragon waved over the
moving column. So they moved on solemnly toward the sea, where, in
the distance, Father Jose saw stately caravels, bearing the same familiar
banner, awaiting them. The good Padre gazed with conflicting
emotions, and the serious voice of the stranger broke the silence.
"Thou hast beheld, Sir Priest, the fading footprints of adventurous
Castile. Thou hast seen the declining glory of old Spain,-- declining as
yonder brilliant sun. The sceptre she hath wrested from the heathen is
fast dropping from her decrepit and fleshless grasp. The children she
hath fostered shall know her no longer. The soil she hath acquired shall
be lost to her as irrevocably as she herself hath thrust the Moor from
her own Granada."
The stranger paused, and his voice seemed broken by emotion; at the
same time, Father Jose, whose sympathizing heart yearned toward the
departing banners, cried in poignant accents,--
"Farewell, ye gallant cavaliers and Christian soldiers! Farewell, thou,
Nunes de Balboa! thou, Alonzo de Ojeda! and thou, most venerable Las
Casas! Farewell, and may Heaven prosper still the seed ye left behind!"
Then turning to the stranger, Father Jose beheld him gravely draw his
pocket-handkerchief from the basket-hilt of his rapier, and apply it
decorously to his eyes.
"Pardon this weakness, Sir Priest," said the cavalier, apologetically;
"but these worthy gentlemen were ancient friends of mine, and have
done me many a delicate service,--much more, perchance, than these
poor sables may signify," he added, with a grim gesture toward the

mourning suit he wore.
Father Jose was too much preoccupied in reflection to notice the
equivocal nature of this tribute, and, after a few moments' silence, said,
as if continuing his thought,--
"But the seed they have planted shall thrive and prosper on this fruitful
soil."
As if answering the interrogatory, the stranger turned to the opposite
direction, and, again waving his hat, said, in the same serious tone,--
"Look to the East!"
The Father turned, and, as the fog broke away before the waving plume,
he saw that the sun was rising. Issuing with its bright beams through
the passes of the snowy mountains beyond, appeared a strange and
motley crew. Instead of the dark and romantic visages of his last
phantom train, the Father beheld with strange concern the blue eyes and
flaxen hair of a Saxon race. In place of martial airs and musical
utterance, there rose upon the ear a strange din of harsh gutturals and
singular sibilation. Instead of the decorous tread and stately mien of the
cavaliers of the former vision, they came pushing, bustling, panting,