Roderic revealed his name to the father, who, deeply impressed by the tone of penitence in his voice, knelt beside him and ministered to the stricken monarch throughout the long night hours. He assured him that he must live to work out his salvation, and when morning broke the aged priest and he who yesterday had been one of the proudest kings in Christendom quitted the chapel and went on their way.
The holy father led the crownless King to a hermitage, where he gave him further ghostly counsel, enjoining him to remain in that place so long as it should please God. “As for me,” he said, “on the third day from hence I shall pass out of this world, and thou shalt bury me and take my garments and remain here for the space of a year at least, that thou mayst endure hunger and cold and thirst in the love of our Lord, that He may have compassion on thee.”
On the third day, as he had prophesied, the hermit expired. Deeply grieved at his death, Roderic busied himself in carrying out his last wishes, and with an oaken staff and his bare hands dug a grave for the holy man’s body. When he was in the act of laying him in the ground he found a scroll in his hand covered with writing, addressed to himself, and containing advice concerning the life he should lead while an inmate of the hermitage. This Roderic reverently perused, and resolved to follow its injunctions to the letter.
But the Father of Evil was not minded that the King should proceed undisturbed in his quest for salvation, and that night appeared to him as he was in the act of committing the hermit to the grave. He came in monkish garb, his features hooded by a great cowl, and further disguised by a beard of venerable length and silvery whiteness, supporting himself by a staff as if he were lame. Roderic took him for a friend of the dead hermit, and would have kissed his hand, but the Fiend drew back, saying: “It is not meet that a king should kiss the hand of a poor servant of God.” The King, hearing his identity thus revealed, believed the Devil to be a holy man, speaking by aid of a revelation. “Alas!” he said, “I am not a king, but a miserable sinner, who had better never have been born, so much woe has visited the land through my misdoing.”
“Thou hast not so much fault as thou thinkest,” replied Satan, “for the calamity of which thou speakest would have occurred in any case. It was ordained, and the fault was not thine. My words are those of a spirit created by the will of God, and not mine own.” The Evil One then pretended that he had journeyed all the way from Rome to help Roderic in his distress, and hearing this the King rejoiced, and listened reverently as the Devil attempted to controvert the teaching of the dead hermit by specious arguments. But when the King requested the seeming holy man to assist him in burying the anchorite’s remains he was surprised to see him turn and make off at a good speed, despite his alleged lameness.
At the hour of noon next day the Devil returned with a basket full of savoury food. But the dead hermit had enjoined Roderic to eat of nothing but the rye bread which the shepherds would bring him once a week, and obedient to this, he withstood the tempter’s proffered meat and wine. The argument betwixt the King and Satan is then elaborated with medieval prolixity and due regard to the hair-splitting, logic-chopping theology of the time. Even a medieval sense of decency might have prompted the writer to omit the King’s interview with the Holy Ghost, as to which I will only say here that at the word of the Holy Spirit the foul fiend fled in the shape of a horrid devil, bristling with the insignia of hell.
Satan’s Stratagem
But the Enemy was not yet finished with Don Roderic, for one evening at set of sun the hermit King saw one approach with a great power of armed men and every display of pomp and circumstance. As the train drew nearer, Roderic, to his amazement, beheld in its leader Count Julian, who came to him and would have kissed his hand with every sign of homage, offering himself up to the King’s vengeance and justice, and freely acknowledging his treason. The seeming Julian begged him to rise up and take once more his proper place at the head of the Spanish forces, so that the infidel might be thrust out of Spain. But Roderic, suspecting another fiendish stratagem, shook his head, and requested Julian to accept the leadership of the Gothic army himself, as his vows did not permit him to engage any longer in worldly affairs. Julian turned to the great company behind him, among whom Roderic beheld many whom he had thought to have been slain in battle, and these enthusiastically seconded their leader’s arguments. But when the fiendish crew saw that their pleading was without avail they withdrew to the plain below, where they formed themselves in battle array, as if awaiting the onset of an enemy. And lo! against them came a multitude of seeming pagans, so that a great and fierce carnage followed. To the anxious eyes of the King, those who represented the Christian host seemed to put the paynim to the rout, and messengers spurred to the hermitage, announcing to him that his people had gained a glorious victory. But as the cock crowed the whole pageant of battle passed away like smoke borne before the breeze, and the King knew that he had once more withstood the wiles of the Enemy.
