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,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.