the rest of their days; and it was only within a century or two that the
island of Satanaxio disappeared from the charts.



XV

ANTILLIA, THE ISLAND OF THE SEVEN CITIES


The young Spanish page, Luis de Vega, had been for some months at the
court of Don Rodrigo, king of Spain, when he heard the old knights
lamenting, as they came out of the palace at Toledo, over the king's last
and most daring whim. "He means," said one of them in a whisper, "to
penetrate the secret cave of the Gothic kings, that cave on which each
successive sovereign has put a padlock,"

"Till there are now twenty-seven of them," interrupted a still older
knight.

"And he means," said the first, frowning at the interruption, "to take
thence the treasures of his ancestors."

"Indeed, he must do it," said another, "else the son of his ancestors
will have no treasure left of his own."

"But there is a spell upon it," said the other. "For ages Spain has been
threatened with invasion, and it is the old tradition that the only
talisman which can prevent it is in this cave."