When Roderick saw this figure, he was dismayed awhile; but seeing on its breast the words, "I do my duty," he plucked up courage and conjured it to let him pass in safety, for he meant no sacrilege, but only wished to learn the mystery of the tower. Then the figure stood still, with its mace uplifted, and the king and his followers passed beneath it into the second chamber. They found this encrusted with precious stones, and in its midst was a table, set there by Hercules, and on it a casket, with the inscription, "In this coffer is the mystery of the Tower. The hand of none but a king can open it; but let him beware, for wonderful things will be disclosed to him, which must happen before his death." When the king had opened the coffer, there was nothing in it but a parchment folded between two plates of copper; on it were figured men on horseback, fierce of countenance, armed with bows and scimitars, and above them was the motto, "Behold, rash man, those who shall hurl thee from thy throne and subdue thy kingdom." And as they gazed upon the picture, on a sudden they heard the sound of warfare, and saw, as though in a cloud, that the figures of the strange horsemen began to move, and the picture became a vision of war: So to sad Roderick's eye, in order spread, Successive pageants filled that mystic scene, Showing the fate of battles ere they bled, And issue of events that had not been. "They beheld before them a great field of battle, where Christians and Moors were engaged in deadly conflict. They heard the rush and tramp of steeds, the blast of trump and clarion, the clash of cymbal, and the stormy din of a thousand drums. There was the flash of swords and maces and battle-axes, with the whistling of arrows and the hurling of darts and lances. The Christians quailed before the foe. The infidels pressed upon them and put them to utter rout; the standard of the Cross was cast down, the banner of Spain was trodden under foot; the air resounded with shouts of triumph, with yells of fury, and with the groans of dying men. Amidst the flying squadrons King Roderick beheld a crowned warrior, whose back was turned towards him, but whose armour and device were his own, and who was mounted on a white steed that resembled his own war-horse Orelia. In the confusion of the fight, the warrior was dismounted, and was no longer seen to be, and Orelia galloped wildly through the field of battle without a rider."[4] When the king and his attendants fled dismayed from the enchanted tower, the great bronze figure had disappeared, the two aged janitors lay dead at the entrance, and amid various stormy portents of nature the tower burst into a blaze, and every stone was consumed and scattered to the winds; and it is related that wherever its ashes fell to the earth there was seen a drop of blood. The mediæval chroniclers, both Christian and Arab, delighted to relate portents such as these: