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