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 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.