The Legend of the Engulphed Convent

by Washington Irving

　　BY GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT.

　　At the dark and melancholy period when Don Roderick the Goth and hischivalry were overthrown on the banks of the Guadalete, and all Spainwas overrun by the Moors, great was the devastation of churches andconvents throughout that pious kingdom. The miraculous fate of one ofthose holy piles is thus recorded in one of the authentic legends ofthose days.On the summit of a hill, not very distant from the capital city ofToledo, stood an ancient convent and chapel, dedicated to the invocationof Saint Benedict, and inhabited by a sisterhood of Benedictine nuns.This holy asylum was confined to females of noble lineage. The youngersisters of the highest families were here given in religious marriage totheir Saviour, in order that the portions of their elder sisters mightbe increased, and they enabled to make suitable matches on earth, orthat the family wealth might go undivided to elder brothers, and thedignity of their ancient houses be protected from decay. The convent wasrenowned, therefore, for enshrining within its walls a sisterhood of thepurest blood, the most immaculate virtue, and most resplendent beauty,of all Gothic Spain.When the Moors overran the kingdom, there was nothing that moreexcited their hostility than these virgin asylums. The very sight of aconvent-spire was sufficient to set their Moslem blood in a foment, andthey sacked it with as fierce a zeal as though the sacking of a nunnerywere a sure passport to Elysium.Tidings of such outrages committed in various parts of the kingdomreached this noble sanctuary and filled it with dismay. The dangercame nearer and nearer; the infidel hosts were spreading all over thecountry; Toledo itself was captured; there was no flying from theconvent, and no security within its walls.In the midst of this agitation, the alarm was given one day that a greatband of Saracens were spurring across the plain. In an instant the wholeconvent was a scene of confusion. Some of the nuns wrung their fairhands at the windows; others waved their veils and uttered shrieks fromthe tops of the towers, vainly hoping to draw relief from a countryover-run by the foe. The sight of these innocent doves thus flutteringabout their dove-cote, but increased the zealot fury of the whiskeredMoors. They thundered at the portal, and at every blow the ponderousgates trembled on their hinges.The nuns now crowded round the abbess. They had been accustomed to lookup to her as all-powerful, and they now implored her protection. Themother abbess looked with a rueful eye upon the treasures of beautyand vestal virtue exposed to such imminent peril. Alas! how was she toprotect them from the spoiler! She had, it is true, experienced manysignal inter-positions of providence in her individual favor. Her earlydays had been passed amid the temptations of a court, where her virtuehad been purified by repeated trials, from none of which had she escapedbut by a miracle. But were miracles never to cease? Could she hope thatthe marvelous protection shown to herself would be extended to awhole sisterhood? There was no other resource. The Moors were at thethreshold; a few moments more and the convent would be at their mercy.Summoning her nuns to follow her, she hurried into the chapel; andthrowing herself on her knees before the image of the blessed Mary, "Oh,holy Lady!" exclaimed she, "oh, most pure and immaculate of virgins!thou seest our extremity. The ravager is at the gate, and there is noneon earth to help us! Look down with pity, and grant that the earth maygape and swallow us rather than that our cloister vows should sufferviolation!"The Moors redoubled their assault upon the portal; the gates gave way,with a tremendous crash; a savage yell of exultation arose; when of asudden the earth yawned; down sank the convent, with its cloisters, itsdormitories, and all its nuns. The chapel tower was the last that sank,the bell ringing forth a peal of triumph in the very teeth of theinfidels.

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　　Forty years had passed and gone, since the period of this miracle. Thesubjugation of Spain was complete. The Moors lorded it over city andcountry; and such of the Christian population as remained, and werepermitted to exercise their religion, did it in humble resignation tothe Moslem sway.At this time, a Christian cavalier, of Cordova, hearing that a patrioticband of his countrymen had raised the standard of the cross in themountains of the Asturias, resolved to join them, and unite in breakingthe yoke of bondage. Secretly arming himself, and caparisoning hissteed, he set forth from Cordova, and pursued his course by unfrequentedmule-paths, and along the dry channels made by winter torrents. Hisspirit burned with indignation, whenever, on commanding a view over along sweeping plain, he beheld the mosque swelling in the distance, andthe Arab horsemen careering about, as if the rightful lords of the soil.Many a deep-drawn sigh, and heavy groan, also, did the good cavalierutter, on passing the ruins of churches and convents desolated by theconquerors.It was on a sultry midsummer evening, that this wandering cavalier, inskirting a hill thickly covered with forest, heard the faint tones of avesper bell sounding melodiously in the air, and seeming to come fromthe summit of the hill. The cavalier crossed himself with wonder, atthis unwonted and Christian sound. He supposed it to proceed from oneof those humble chapels and hermitages permitted to exist through theindulgence of the Moslem conquerors. Turning his steed up a narrowpath of the forest, he sought this sanctuary, in hopes of finding ahospitable shelter for the night. As he advanced, the trees threw a deepgloom around him, and the bat flitted across his path. The bell ceasedto toll, and all was silence.Presently a choir of female voices came stealing sweetly through theforest, chanting the evening service, to the solemn accompaniment ofan organ. The heart of the good cavalier melted at the sound, for itrecalled the happier days of his country. Urging forward his wearysteed, he at length arrived at a broad grassy area, on the summit of thehill, surrounded by the forest. Here the melodious voices rose in fullchorus, like the swelling of the breeze; but whence they came, he couldnot tell. Sometimes they were before, sometimes behind him; sometimes inthe air, sometimes as if from within the bosom of the earth. At lengththey died away, and a holy stillness settled on the place.The cavalier gazed around with bewildered eye. There was neither chapelnor convent, nor humble hermitage, to be seen; nothing but a moss-grownstone pinnacle, rising out of the centre of the area, surmounted by across. The greensward around appeared to have been sacred from the treadof man or beast, and the surrounding trees bent toward the cross, as ifin adoration.The cavalier felt a sensation of holy awe. He alighted and tetheredhis steed on the skirts of the forest, where he might crop the tenderherbage; then approaching the cross, he knelt and poured forth hisevening prayers before this relique of the Christian days of Spain.His orisons being concluded, he laid himself down at the foot of thepinnacle, and reclining his head against one of its stones, fell into adeep sleep.About midnight, he was awakened by the tolling of a bell, and foundhimself lying before the gate of an ancient convent. A train of nunspassed by, each bearing a taper. The cavalier rose and followed theminto the chapel; in the centre of which was a bier, on which lay thecorpse of an aged nun. The organ performed a solemn requiem: the nunsjoining in chorus. When the funeral service was finished, a melodiousvoice chanted, "Requiescat in pace!"--"May she rest in peace!" Thelights immediately vanished; the whole passed away as a dream; and thecavalier found himself at the foot of the cross, and beheld, by thefaint rays of the rising moon, his steed quietly grazing near him.When the day dawned, the cavalier descended the hill, and following thecourse of a small brook, came to a cave, at the entrance of which wasseated an ancient man, clad in hermit's garb, with rosary and cross,and a beard that descended to his girdle. He was one of those holyanchorites permitted by the Moors to live unmolested in dens and caves,and humble hermitages, and even to practise the rites of their religion.The cavalier checked his horse, and dismounting, knelt and craved abenediction. He then related all that had befallen him in the night, andbesought the hermit to explain the mystery."What thou hast heard and seen, my son," replied the other, "is but typeand shadow of the woes of Spain."He then related the foregoing story of the miraculous deliverance of theconvent."Forty years," added the holy man, "have elapsed since this event, yetthe bells of that sacred edifice are still heard, from time to time,sounding from under ground, together with the pealing of the organ, andthe chanting of the choir. The Moors avoid this neighborhood, as hauntedground, and the whole place, as thou mayest perceive, has become coveredwith a thick and lonely forest."The cavalier listened with wonder to the story of this engulphedconvent, as related by the holy man. For three days and nights did theykeep vigils beside the cross; but nothing more was to be seen of nun orconvent. It is supposed that, forty years having elapsed, the naturallives of all the nuns were finished, and that the cavalier had beheldthe obsequies of the last of the sisterhood. Certain it is, that fromthat time, bell, and organ, and choral chant have never more been heard.The mouldering pinnacle, surmounted by the cross, still remains anobject of pious pilgrimage. Some say that it anciently stood in frontof the convent, but others assert that it was the spire of the sacrededifice, and that, when the main body of the building sank, thisremained above ground, like the top-mast of some tall ship thathas foundered. These pious believers maintain, that the convent ismiraculously preserved entire in the centre of the mountain, where, ifproper excavations were made, it would be found, with all its treasures,and monuments, and shrines, and reliques, and the tombs of its virginnuns.Should any one doubt the truth of this marvelous interposition of theVirgin, to protect the vestal purity of her votaries, let him read theexcellent work entitled Espaa Triumphante, written by Padre FrayAntonio de Sancta Maria, a bare-foot friar of the Carmelite order, andhe will doubt no longer.

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