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Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic

T >> Thomas Wentworth Higginson >> Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic




"But if he penetrates to it, his power is lost."

"A pretty talisman," said the other. "It is only of use to anybody so
long as no one sees it. Were I the king I would hold it in my hands. And I
have counselled him to heed no graybeards, but to seize the treasure for
himself. I have offered to accompany him."

"May it please your lordship," said the eager Luis, "may I go with you?"

"Yes," said Don Alonzo de Carregas, turning to the ardent boy. "Where the
king goes I go, and where I go thou shalt be my companion. See, señors,"
he said, turning to the others, "how the ready faith of boyhood puts your
fears to shame. To his Majesty the terrors of this goblin cave are but a
jest which frightens the old and only rouses the young to courage. The
king may find the recesses of the cavern filled with gold and jewels; he
who goes with him may share them. This boy is my first recruit: who
follows?"

By this time a whole group of courtiers, young and old, had assembled
about Don Alonzo, and every man below thirty years was ready to pledge
himself to the enterprise. But the older courtiers and the archbishop
Oppas were beseeching the king to refrain. "Respect, O king," they said,
"the custom held sacred by twenty-seven of thy predecessors. Give us but
an estimate of the sum that may, in thy kingly mind, represent the wealth
that is within the cavern walls, and we will raise it on our own domains,
rather than see the sacred tradition set at nought." The king's only
answer was, "Follow me," Don Alonzo hastily sending the boy Luis to
collect the younger knights who had already pledged themselves to the
enterprise. A gallant troop, they made their way down the steep steps
which led from the palace to the cave. The news had spread; the ladies had
gathered on the balconies, and the bright face of one laughing girl looked
from a bower window, while she tossed a rose to the happy Luis. Alas, it
fell short of its mark and hit the robes of Archbishop Oppas, who stood
with frowning face as the youngster swept by. The archbishop crushed it
unwittingly in the hand that held the crosier.

The rusty padlocks were broken, and each fell clanking on the floor, and
was brushed away by mailed heels. They passed from room to room with
torches, for the cavern extended far beneath the earth; yet they found no
treasure save the jewelled table of Solomon. But for their great
expectations, this table alone might have proved sufficient to reward
their act of daring. Some believed that it had been brought by the Romans
from Solomon's temple, and from Rome by the Goths and Vandals who sacked
that city and afterwards conquered Spain; but all believed it to be
sacred, and now saw it to be gorgeous. Some describe it as being of gold,
set with precious stones; others, as of gold and silver, making it yellow
and white in hue, ornamented with a row of pearls, a row of rubies, and
another row of emeralds. It is generally agreed that it stood on three
hundred and sixty feet, each made of a single emerald. Being what it was,
the king did not venture to remove it, but left it where it was.
Traversing chamber after chamber and finding all empty, they at last found
all passages leading to the inmost apartment, which had a marble urn in
the centre. Yet all eyes presently turned from this urn to a large
painting on the wall which displayed a troop of horsemen in full motion.
Their horses were of Arab breed, their arms were scimitars and lances,
with fluttering pennons; they wore turbans, and their coarse black hair
fell over their shoulders; they were dressed in skins. Never had there
been seen by the courtiers a mounted troop so wild, so eager, so
formidable. Turning from them to the marble urn, the king drew from it a
parchment, which said: "These are the people who, whenever this cave is
entered and the spell contained in this urn is broken, shall possess this
country. An idle curiosity has done its work.[2]

[Footnote 2: "_Latinas letras á la margen puestas
Decian:--'Cuando aquesta puerta y arca
Fueran abiertas, gentes como estas
Pondrán por tierra cuanto España abarca._"
--LOPE DE VEGA.]

The rash king, covering his eyes with his hands, fled outward from the
cavern; his knights followed him, but Don Alonzo lingered last except the
boy Luis. "Nevertheless, my lord," said Luis, "I should like to strike a
blow at these bold barbarians." "We may have an opportunity," said the
gloomy knight. He closed the centre gate of the cavern, and tried to
replace the broken padlocks, but it was in vain. In twenty-four hours the
story had travelled over the kingdom.

The boy Luis little knew into what a complex plot he was drifting. In the
secret soul of his protector, Don Alonzo, there burned a great anger
against the weak and licentious king. He and his father, Count Julian, and
Archbishop Oppas, his uncle, were secretly brooding plans of wrath against
Don Rodrigo for his ill treatment of Don Alonzo's sister, Florinda. Rumors
had told them that an army of strange warriors from Africa, who had
hitherto carried all before them, were threatening to cross the straits
not yet called Gibraltar, and descend on Spain. All the ties of fidelity
held these courtiers to the king; but they secretly hated him, and wished
for his downfall. By the next day they had planned to betray him to the
Moors. Count Julian had come to make his military report to Don Rodrigo,
and on some pretext had withdrawn Florinda from the court. "When you come
again," said the pleasure-loving king, "bring me some hawks from the
south, that we may again go hawking." "I will bring you hawks enough," was
the answer, "and such as you never saw before." "But Rodrigo," says the
Arabian chronicler, "did not understand the full meaning of his words."

It was a hard blow for the young Luis when he discovered what a plot was
being urged around him. He would gladly have been faithful to the king,
worthless as he knew him to be; but Don Alonzo had been his benefactor,
and he held by him. Meanwhile the conspiracy drew towards completion, and
the Arab force was drawing nearer to the straits. A single foray into
Spain had shown Musa, the Arab general, the weakness of the kingdom; that
the cities were unfortified, the citizens unarmed, and many of the nobles
lukewarm towards the king. "Hasten," he said, "towards that country where
the palaces are filled with gold and silver, and the men cannot fight in
their defence." Accordingly, in the early spring of the year 711, Musa
sent his next in command, Tarik, to cross to Spain with an army of seven
thousand men, consisting mostly of chosen cavalry. They crossed the
straits then called the Sea of Narrowness, embarking the troops at Tangier
and Ceute in many merchant vessels, and landing at that famous promontory
called thenceforth by the Arab general's name, the Rock of Tarik,
Dschebel-Tarik, or, more briefly, Gibraltar.

Luis, under Don Alonzo, was with the Spanish troops sent hastily down to
resist the Arab invaders, and, as these troops were mounted, he had many
opportunities of seeing the new enemies and observing their ways. They
were a picturesque horde; their breasts were covered with mail armor; they
wore white turbans on their heads, carried their bows slung across their
backs, and their swords suspended to their girdles, while they held their
long spears firmly grasped in their hands. The Arabs said that their
fashion of mail armor had come to them from King David, "to whom," they
said, "God made iron soft, and it became in his hands as thread." More
than half of them were mounted on the swift horses which were peculiar to
their people; and the white, red, and black turbans and cloaks made a most
striking picture around the camp-fires. These men, too, were already
trained and successful soldiers, held together both by a common religion
and by the hope of spoil. There were twelve thousand of them by the most
probable estimate,--for Musa had sent reinforcements,--and they had
against them from five to eight times their number. But of the Spaniards
only a small part were armed or drilled, or used to warfare, and great
multitudes of them had to put their reliance in clubs, slings, axes, and
short scythes. The cavalry were on the wings, where Luis found himself,
with Count Julian and Archbishop Oppas to command them. Soon, however, Don
Alonzo and Luis were detached, with others, to act as escort to the king,
Don Rodrigo.

The battle began soon after daybreak on Sunday, July 19, 711. As the
Spanish troops advanced, their trumpets sounded defiance and were answered
by Moorish horns and kettledrums. While they drew near, the shouts of the
Spaniards were drowned in the _lelie_ of the Arabs, the phrase _Lá
ilá-ha ella-llah_--there is no deity but God. As they came nearer yet,
there is a tradition that Rodrigo looking on the Moslem, said, "By the
faith of the Messiah, these are the very men I saw painted on the walls of
the cave at Toledo." Yet he certainly bore himself like a king, and he
rode on the battle-field in a chariot of ivory lined with gold, having a
silken awning decked with pearls and rubies, while the vehicle was drawn
by three white mules abreast. He was then nearly eighty, and was dressed
in a silken robe embroidered with pearls. He had brought with him in carts
and on mules his treasures in jewels and money; and he had trains of mules
whose only load consisted of ropes, to bind the arms of his captives, so
sure was he of making every Arab his prisoner. Driving along the lines he
addressed his troops boldly, and arriving at the centre quitted his
chariot, put on a horned helmet, and mounted his white horse Orelio.

This was before the invention of gunpowder, and all battles were hand to
hand. On the first day the result was doubtful, and Tarik rode through the
Arab ranks, calling on them to fight for their religion and their safety.
As the onset began, Tarik rode furiously at a Spanish chief whom he took
for the king, and struck him down. For a moment it was believed to be the
king whom he had killed, and from that moment new energy was given to the
Arabs. The line of the Spaniards wavered; and at this moment the whole
wing of cavalry to which Luis belonged rode out from its place and passed
on the flank of the army, avoiding both Spaniard and Arab. "What means
this?" said Luis to the horseman by his side. "It means," was the answer,
"that Bishop Oppas is betraying the king." At this moment Don Alonzo rode
up and cheered their march with explanations. "No more," he said, "will we
obey this imbecile old king who can neither fight nor govern. He and his
troops are but so many old women; it is only these Arabs who are men. All
is arranged with Tarik, and we will save our country by joining the only
man who can govern it." Luis groaned in dismay; it seemed to him an act of
despicable treachery; but those around him seemed mostly prepared for it,
and he said to himself, "After all, Don Alonzo is my chief; I must hold by
him;" so he kept with the others, and the whole cavalry wing followed
Oppas to a knoll, whence they watched the fight. It soon became a panic;
the Arabs carried all before them, and the king himself was either killed
or hid himself in a convent.

Many a Spaniard of the seceding wing of cavalry reproached himself
afterwards for what had been done; and while the archbishop had some
influence with the conquering general and persuaded him to allow the
Christians everywhere to retain a part of their churches, yet he had,
after all, the reward of a traitor in contempt and self-reproach. This he
could bear no longer, and organizing an expedition from a Spanish port, he
and six minor bishops, with many families of the Christians, made their
way towards Gibraltar. They did not make their escape, however, without
attracting notice and obstruction. As they rode among the hills with their
long train, soldiers, ecclesiastics, women, and children, they saw a
galloping band of Arabs in pursuit. The archbishop bade them turn
instantly into a deserted castle they were just passing, to drop the
portcullis and man the walls. That they might look as numerous as
possible, he bade all the women dress themselves like men and tie their
long hair beneath their chins to resemble beards. He then put helmets on
their heads and lances in their hands, and thus the Arab leader saw a
formidable host on the walls to be besieged. In obedience, perhaps, to
orders, he rode away and after sufficient time had passed, the
archbishop's party rode onward towards their place of embarkation. Luis
found himself beside a dark-eyed maiden, who ambled along on a white mule,
and when he ventured to joke her a little on her late appearance as an
armed cavalier, she said coyly, "Did you think my only weapons were
roses?" Looking eagerly at her, he recognized the laughing face which he
had once seen at a window; but ere he could speak again she had struck her
mule lightly and taken refuge beside the archbishop, where Luis dared not
venture. He did not recognize the maiden again till they met on board one
of the vessels which the Arabs had left at Gibraltar, and on which they
embarked for certain islands of which Oppas had heard, which lay in the
Sea of Darkness. Among these islands they were to find their future home.

The voyage, at first rough, soon became serene and quiet; the skies were
clear, the moon shone; the veils of the Spanish maidens were convenient by
day and useless at evening, and Luis had many a low-voiced talk on the
quarter-deck with Juanita, who proved to be a young relative of the
archbishop. It was understood that she was to take the veil, and that,
young as she was, she would become, by and by, the lady abbess of a
nunnery to be established on the islands; and as her kinsman, though
severe to others, was gentle to her, she had her own way a good deal--
especially beneath the moon and the stars. For the rest, they had daily
services of religion, as dignified and sonorous as could have taken place
on shore, except on those rare occasions when the chief bass voice was
hushed in seasickness in some cabin below. Beautiful Gregorian masses rose
to heaven, and it is certain that the Pilgrim fathers, in their two months
on the Atlantic, almost a thousand years later, had no such rich melody as
floated across those summer seas. Luis was a favorite of Oppas, the
archbishop, who never seemed to recognize any danger in having an
enamoured youth so near to the demure future abbess. He consulted the
youth about many plans. Their aim, it seemed, was the great island called
Antillia, as yet unexplored, but reputed to be large enough for many
thousand people. Oppas was to organize the chief settlement, and he
planned to divide the island into seven dioceses, each bishop having a
permanent colony. Once established, they would trade with Spain, and
whether it remained Moorish or became Christian, Oppas was sure of
friendly relations.

The priests were divided among the three vessels, and among them there
was that occasional jarring from which even holy men are not quite free.
The different bishops had their partisans, but none dared openly face the
imperial Oppas. His supposed favorite Luis was less formidable; he was
watched and spied upon, while his devotion to the dignified Juanita was
apparent to all. Yet he was always ready to leave her side when Oppas
called, and then they discussed together the future prospects of the
party: when they should see land, whether it would really be Antillia,
whether they should have a good landfall, whether the island would be
fertile, whether there would be native inhabitants, and if so, whether
they should be baptized and sent to Spain as slaves, or whether they
should be retained on the island. It was decided, on the whole, that this
last should be done; and what with the prospect of winning souls, and the
certainty of having obedient subjects, the prospect seemed inviting.

One morning, at sunrise, there lay before them a tropic island, soft and
graceful, with green shrubs and cocoanut trees, and rising in the distance
to mountains whose scooped tops and dark, furrowed sides spoke of extinct
volcanoes--yet not so extinct but that a faint wreath of vapor still
mounted from the utmost peak of the highest among them. Here and there
were seen huts covered with great leaves or sheaves of grass, and among
these they saw figures moving and disappearing, watching their approach,
yet always ready to disappear in the recesses of the woods. Sounding
carefully the depth of water with their imperfect tackle, they anchored
off the main beach, and sent a boat on shore from each vessel, Luis being
in command of one. The natives at first hovered in the distance, but
presently came down to the shore to meet the visitors, some even swimming
off to the boats in advance. They were of a yellow complexion, with good
features, were naked except for goat-skins or woven palm fibres, or reeds
painted in different colors; and were gay and merry, singing and dancing
among themselves. When brought on board the ships, they ate bread and
figs, but refused wine and spices; and they seemed not to know the use of
rings or of swords, when shown to them. Whatever was given to them they
divided with one another. They cultivated fruit and grain on their island,
reared goats, and seemed willing to share all with their newly found
friends. Luis, always thoughtful, and somewhat anxious in temperament,
felt many doubts as to the usage which these peaceful islanders would
receive from the ships' company, no matter how many bishops and holy men
might be on board.

All that day there was exploring by small companies, and on the next the
archbishop landed in solemn procession. The boats from the ships all met
at early morning, near the shore, the sight bringing together a crowd of
islanders on the banks; men, women, and children, who, with an instinct
that something of importance was to happen, decked themselves with
flowers, wreaths, and plumes, the number increasing constantly and the
crowd growing more and more picturesque. Forming from the boats, a
procession marched slowly up the beach, beginning with a few lay brethren,
carrying tools for digging; then acolytes bearing tall crosses; and then
white-robed priests; the seven bishops being carried on litters, the
archbishop most conspicuously of all. Solemn chants were sung as the
procession moved through the calm water towards the placid shore, and the
gentle savages joined in kneeling while a solemn mass was said, and the
crosses were uplifted which took possession of the new-found land in the
name of the Church.

These solemn services occupied much of the day; later they carried tents
on shore, and some of them occupied large storehouses which the natives
had built for drying their figs; and to the women, under direction of
Juanita, was allotted a great airy cave, with smaller caves branching from
it, where the natives had made palm baskets. Day after day they labored,
transferring all their goods and provisions to the land,--tools, and
horses, and mules, clothing, and simple furniture. Most of them joined
with pleasure in this toil, but others grew restless as they transferred
all their possessions to land, and sometimes the women especially would
climb to high places and gaze longingly towards Spain.

One morning a surprise came to Luis. Every night it was their custom to
have a great fire on the beach, and to meet and sing chants around it. One
night Luis had personally put out the blaze of the fire, as it was more
windy than usual, and went to sleep in his tent. Soon after midnight he
was awakened by a glare of a great light upon his tent's thin walls, and
hastily springing up, he saw their largest caravel on fire. Rushing out to
give the alarm, he saw a similar flame kindled in the second vessel, and
then, after some delay, in the third. Then he saw a dark boat pulling
hastily towards the shore, and going down to the beach he met their most
trusty captain, who told him that the ships had been burnt by order of the
archbishop, in order that their return might be hopeless, and that their
stay on the island might be forever.

There was some lamentation among the emigrants when they saw their
retreat thus cut off, but Luis when once established on shore did not
share it; to be near Juanita was enough for him, though he rarely saw her.
He began sometimes to feel that the full confidence of the archbishop was
withdrawn from him, but he was still high in office, and he rode with
Oppas over the great island, marking it out by slow degrees into seven
divisions, that each bishop might have a diocese and a city of his own.
Soon the foundations began to be laid, and houses and churches began to be
built, for the soft volcanic rock was easily worked, though not very solid
for building. The spot for the cathedral was selected with the unerring
eye for a fine situation which the Roman Catholic Church has always shown,
and the adjoining convent claimed, as it rose, the care of Juanita. As
general superintendent of the works, it was the duty of Luis sometimes to
be in that neighborhood, until one unlucky day when the two lovers,
lingering to watch the full moon rise, were interrupted by one of the
younger bishops, a black-browed Spaniard of stealthy ways, who had before
now taken it upon himself to watch them. Nothing could be more innocent
than their dawning loves, yet how could any love be held innocent on the
part of a maiden who was the kinswoman of an archbishop and was his
destined choice for the duties of an abbess? The fact that she had never
yet taken her preliminary vows or given her consent to take them, counted
for nothing in the situation; though any experienced lady-superior could
have told the archbishop that no maiden could be wisely made an abbess
until she had given some signs of having a vocation for a religious life.

From that moment the youthful pair met no more for weeks. It seemed
always necessary for Luis to be occupied elsewhere than in the Cathedral
city; as the best architect on the island, he was sent here, there, and
everywhere; and the six other churches rose with more rapidity because the
archbishop preferred to look after his own. The once peaceful natives
found themselves a shade less happy when they were required to work all
day long as quarry-men or as builders, but it was something, had they but
known it, that they were not borne away as slaves, as happened later on
other islands to so many of their race. To Luis they were always loyal for
his cheery ways, although there seemed a change in his spirits as time
went on. But an event happened which brought a greater change still.

A Spanish caravel was seen one day, making towards the port and showing
signals of distress. Luis, having just then found an excuse for visiting
the Cathedral city, was the first to board her and was hailed with joy by
the captain. He was a townsman of the youth's and had given him his first
lessons in navigation. He had been bound, it seemed, for the Canary
Islands, and had put in for repairs, which needed only a few days in the
quiet waters of a sheltered port. He could tell Luis of his parents, of
his home, and that the northern part of Spain, under Arab sway, was
humanely governed, and a certain proportion of Christian churches allowed.
In a few days the caravel sailed again at nightfall; but it carried with
it two unexpected passengers; the archbishop lost his architect, and the
proposed convent lost its unwilling abbess.

From this point both the Island of the Seven Cities and its escaping
lovers disappear from all definite records. It was a period when
expeditions of discovery came and went, and when one wondrous tale drove
out another. There exist legends along the northern coast of Spain in the
region of Santander, for instance, of a youth who once eloped with a
high-born maiden and came there to dwell, but there may have been many
such youths and many such maidens--who knows? Of Antillia itself, or the
Island of the Seven Cities, it is well known that it appeared on the maps
of the Atlantic, sometimes under the one name and sometimes under another,
six hundred years after the date assigned by the story that has here been
told. It was said by Fernando Columbus to have been revisited by a
Portuguese sailor in 1447; and the name appeared on the globe of Behaim in
1492.

The geographer Toscanelli, in his famous letter to Columbus, recommended
Antillia as likely to be useful to Columbus as a way station for reaching
India, and when the great explorer reached Hispaniola, he was supposed to
have discovered the mysterious island, whence the name of Antilles was
given to the group. Later, the first explorers of New Mexico thought that
the pueblos were the Seven Cities; so that both the names of the imaginary
island have been preserved, although those of Luis de Vega and his
faithful Juanita have not been recorded until the telling of this tale.

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