Legends and Tales | Page 8

and swaggering. And as they passed, the good Father noticed that giant
trees were prostrated as with the breath of a tornado, and the bowels of
the earth were torn and rent as with a convulsion. And Father Jose
looked in vain for holy cross or Christian symbol; there was but one
that seemed an ensign, and he crossed himself with holy horror as he
perceived it bore the effigy of a bear.
"Who are these swaggering Ishmaelites?" he asked, with something of
asperity in his tone.
The stranger was gravely silent.
"What do they here, with neither cross nor holy symbol?" he again
demanded.

"Have you the courage to see, Sir Priest?" responded the stranger,
quietly.
Father Jose felt his crucifix, as a lonely traveller might his rapier, and
assented.
"Step under the shadow of my plume," said the stranger.
Father Jose stepped beside him, and they instantly sank through the
earth.
When he opened his eyes, which had remained closed in prayerful
meditation during his rapid descent, he found himself in a vast vault,
bespangled overhead with luminous points like the starred firmament.
It was also lighted by a yellow glow that seemed to proceed from a
mighty sea or lake that occupied the centre of the chamber. Around this
subterranean sea dusky figures flitted, bearing ladles filled with the
yellow fluid, which they had replenished from its depths. From this
lake diverging streams of the same mysterious flood penetrated like
mighty rivers the cavernous distance. As they walked by the banks of
this glittering Styx, Father Jose perceived how the liquid stream at
certain places became solid. The ground was strewn with glittering
flakes. One of these the Padre picked up and curiously examined. It
was virgin gold.
An expression of discomfiture overcast the good Father's face at this
discovery; but there was trace neither of malice nor satisfaction in the
stranger's air, which was still of serious and fateful contemplation.
When Father Jose recovered his equanimity, he said, bitterly,--
"This, then, Sir Devil, is your work! This is your deceitful lure for the
weak souls of sinful nations! So would you replace the Christian grace
of holy Spain!"
"This is what must be," returned the stranger, gloomily. "But listen, Sir
Priest. It lies with you to avert the issue for a time. Leave me here in
peace. Go back to Castile, and take with you your bells, your images,
and your missions. Continue here, and you only precipitate results. Stay!

promise me you will do this, and you shall not lack that which will
render your old age an ornament and a blessing"; and the stranger
motioned significantly to the lake.
It was here, the legend discreetly relates, that the Devil showed-- as he
always shows sooner or later--his cloven hoof. The worthy Padre,
sorely perplexed by his threefold vision, and, if the truth must be told, a
little nettled at this wresting away of the glory of holy Spanish
discovery, had shown some hesitation. But the unlucky bribe of the
Enemy of Souls touched his Castilian spirit. Starting back in deep
disgust, he brandished his crucifix in the face of the unmasked Fiend,
and in a voice that made the dusky vault resound, cried,--
"Avaunt thee, Sathanas! Diabolus, I defy thee! What! wouldst thou
bribe me,--me, a brother of the Sacred Society of the Holy Jesus,
Licentiate of Cordova and Inquisitor of Guadalaxara? Thinkest thou to
buy me with thy sordid treasure? Avaunt!"
What might have been the issue of this rupture, and how complete
might have been the triumph of the Holy Father over the Arch-Fiend,
who was recoiling aghast at these sacred titles and the flourishing
symbol, we can never know, for at that moment the crucifix slipped
through his fingers.
Scarcely had it touched the ground before Devil and Holy Father
simultaneously cast themselves toward it. In the struggle they clinched,
and the pious Jose, who was as much the superior of his antagonist in
bodily as in spiritual strength, was about to treat the Great Adversary to
a back somersault, when he suddenly felt the long nails of the stranger
piercing his flesh. A new fear seized his heart, a numbing chillness
crept through his body, and he struggled to free himself, but in vain. A
strange roaring was in his ears; the lake and cavern danced before his
eyes and vanished; and with a loud cry he sank senseless to the ground.
When he recovered his consciousness he was aware of a gentle swaying
motion of his body. He opened his eyes, and saw it was high noon, and
that he was being carried in a litter through the valley. He felt stiff, and,
looking down, perceived that his arm was tightly bandaged to his side.

He closed his eyes and after a