Amazed at such colossal treason, Musa referred Count Julian to his master the Khalif, at Damascus, who at once accepted his infamous proposition. In Spanish legend and history this man is always designated as The Traitor, as if standing alone and on a pinnacle among the men who have betrayed their countries.
Musa, half doubting, sent a preliminary force of about five hundred Moors under a chief named Tarif, to the opposite coast; and the Moors found, as was promised, that they might range at their own will and pleasure in that earthly paradise of Andalusia. The name of this Mussulman chief, Tarif, was given to the spot first touched by the feet of the Mahommedan, which was called Tarifa; and as Tarifa was afterward the place where customs were collected, the word tariff is an imperishable memorial of that event. In like manner Gibraltar was named Gebel-al-Tarik, (Mountain of Tarik) after the leader bearing that name, who was sent later by Musa with a larger force; which name has been gradually changed to its present form—Gibraltar.
Poor King Roderick, while still fighting to maintain his own right to the crown he wore, learned with dismay that his country was invaded by a horde of people from the African coast. Theodemir wrote to him: "So strange is their appearance that we might take them for inhabitants of the sky. Send me all the troops you can collect, without delay." The hawks promised by Count Julian had arrived!
The hour of doom had sounded for the last King of the Visigoths, and for his kingdom. There is a legend that a mysterious tower existed near Toledo, which was built by Hercules, soon after Adam, with the command that no king or lord of Spain should ever seek to know what it contained; instead of that it was the duty of each King to put a new lock upon its mysterious portal.
It is said that Roderick, perhaps in his extremity, resolved to disobey the command, and to discover the secret hidden in the Enchanted Tower. In a jeweled shrine in the very heart of the structure he came at last to a coffer of silver, "right subtly wrought," and far inside of that he reached the final mystery,—only this,—a white cloth folded between two pieces of copper. With trembling eagerness Roderick opened and found painted thereon men with turbans, carrying banners, with swords strung around their necks, and bows behind them, slung at the saddle-bow. Over these figures was written: "When this cloth shall be opened, men appareled like these shall conquer Spain, and be the lords thereof."
Such is the picturesque legend. Men with "turbans and banners and swords slung about their necks," were assuredly now in Andalusia, led by Tarik, who had literally burned his ships behind him, and then told his followers to choose between victory or death.
The two armies faced each other at a spot near Cadiz. It is said that Roderick, the degenerate successor of Alaric, went into battle in a robe of white silk embroidered with gold, sitting on a car of ivory, drawn by white mules. Tarik's men, who were fighting for victory or Paradise, overwhelmed the Goths; Roderick, in his flight, was drowned in the Guadalquivir, and his diadem of pearls and his embroidered robe were sent to Damascus as trophies.
Count Julian urged that the victory be immediately followed up by Musa before there was time for the Spaniards to rally. One after another the cities of Toledo, Cordova, and Granada capitulated, the persecuted Jews flocking to the new standard and aiding in the conquest of their oppressors.
As well might one have held back the Atlantic from rushing through that canal upon the isthmus, as to have stayed the inflowing of the Saracens through the breach made by "the Traitor," Count Julian! In less than two years Spain was a conquered province, rendering allegiance to the Khalif at Damascus, and the Moor,—as the followers of the Prophet in Morocco were called,—reigned in Toledo.