page of discreet and sober history with these signs and portents,
which transcend the probabilities of ordinary life; for the revolutions of
empires and the downfall of mighty kings are awful events, that shake the
physical as well as the moral world, and are often announced by
forerunning marvels and prodigious omens. With such-like cautious
preliminaries do the wary but credulous historiographers of yore usher in
a marvellous event of prophecy and enchantment, linked in ancient story
with the fortunes of Don Roderick, but which modern doubters would fain
hold up as an apocryphal tradition of Arabian origin.

Now, so it happened, according to the legend, that about this time, as
King Roderick was seated one day on his throne, surrounded by his nobles,
in the ancient city of Toledo, two men of venerable appearance entered the
hall of audience. Their snowy beards descended to their breasts, and their
gray hairs were bound with ivy. They were arrayed in white garments of
foreign or antiquated fashion, which swept the ground, and were cinctured
with girdles, wrought with the signs of the zodiac, from which were
suspended enormous bunches of keys of every variety of form. Having
approached the throne and made obeisance: 'Know, O King,' said one of the
old men, 'that in days of yore, when Hercules of Libya, surnamed the
strong, had set up his pillars at the ocean strait, he erected a tower
near to this ancient city of Toledo. He built it of prodigious strength,
and finished it with magic art, shutting up within it a fearful secret,
never to be penetrated without peril and disaster. To protect this
terrible mystery he closed the entrance to the edifice with a ponderous
door of iron, secured by a great lock of steel; and he left a command that
every king who should succeed him should add another lock to the portal;
denouncing wo and destruction on him who should eventually unfold the
secret of the tower.

'The guardianship of the portal was given to our ancestors, and has
continued in our family, from generation to generation, since the days of
Hercules. Several kings, from time to time, have caused the gate to be
thrown open, and have attempted to enter, but have paid dearly for their
temerity. Some have perished within the threshold, others have been
overwhelmed with horror at tremendous sounds, which shook the foundations
of the earth, and have hastened to re-close the door, and secure it with
its thousand locks. Thus, sin