THE MOORISH GOLD.
the Tagus, and spread out like steam above the highest roofs, making the sun look red and fiery.
In spite of this, says the legend, they set about defending themselves; and the danger being imminent, they shipped great store of costly merchandise, with jewels, and gold, and coined money, on board their vessels, which lay in the Tagus, and sent them off, to the number of five, with orders to drop down the river, double the Cape St. Vincent, and sail up the Guadalquivir, that their precious lading might be given over into the keeping of the Moorish King of Seville.
But alas, says the legend, of those five fair vessels, not one ever cast anchor before the walls of Seville, for a great wind took them, scattered and drove them northward as soon as they were clear of the Tagus, and it is supposed that four of the five foundered with their crews and their lading, for they never were heard of more.
It was supposed so, says the legend, but the Moorish masters of Toledo had little time to fret themselves for their sunken treasure, since that same week the plague appeared, and while the Christians were harassing them without, they lay in the still heat and perished in the streets by hundreds and by thousands within.
One vessel was left, and day after day, in the wind and the storm, she drove still farther northward, and that strange lethargy had crept on board with the sailors, though now there was neither any heat, nor scent of pomegranate flowers, to plead as a reason for it. And now the white cliffs of a great island were visible, and they said to themselves that they should
