On returning home the priest observed that he wished that Lazarus would revisit the place, and make sure that the inscription had been accurately copied. Accordingly, next day, Aigner reascended the mountain and found the chapel again. But he had started late, having his ordinary work to do before he had leisure to go, and the evening was darkening in. As the way led by precipices, he deemed it inadvisable to retrace his steps that night, and so laid himself down to sleep. Next morning, Thursday, he woke refreshed, but to his amazement saw standing before him an aged barefooted friar, who asked him whence he came and what had brought him there. To this Lazarus Aigner answered truthfully. Then the hermit said to him, "I will explain to you what is the signification of these letters, and will show you something in vision."
Then the barefooted friar led him into a chasm, and unlocked an iron door in the rock, by means of which Lazarus was admitted into the heart of the mountain. There he saw a huge hall out of which went seven passages that led to the cathedral of Salzburg, the church of Reichenhall, Feldkirch in Tirol, Gemund, Seekirchen, S. Maximilien, S. Michael, Hall, St. Zeno, Traunstein, S. Dionysius and S. Bartholmæ on the Konigsee. Here also Aigner saw divine worship conducted by dead monks and canons, and with the attendance of countless dead of all times in strange old-world costumes. He recognised many whom he had known when alive. Then he was shown the library, and given the interpretation of the mysterious letters, but as it was in Latin, Aigner forgot it. After seven days and as many nights spent in the underground world, he returned to daylight, and as the hermit parted with him he solemnly bade him reserve the publication of what he had seen and heard till the expiration of thirty-five years, when times of distress and searchings of heart would come, and then the account of his vision might be of profit. And exactly at the end of the thirty- five years Lazarus Aigner died. There can be little doubt that, if the whole was not a clumsy fabrication, it was the record of a dream he had when sleeping, on the mountain outside the chapel of the Unterberg.
Roderic, the last of the Goths, has been laid hold of by legend and by poetry. Southey wrote his poem on the theme, and Scott his "Vision of Don Roderic," an odd blunder in the title, as _don_ was not used prior to the ninth century. Roderic ascended the throne of the Goths in Spain in 709. According to the legend he seduced the daughter of Julian, Count of the Gothic possessions in Africa. She complained to her father, and he in revenge invited the Moors, whom he had hitherto valiantly opposed, to aid him in casting Roderic from his throne, the issue of which was the defeat and death of Roderic, and the occupation of nearly the whole peninsula by the Moors. At Toledo is a cave with a tower at its entrance formerly dedicated to Hercules, and tradition said that he who entered would learn the future fate of Spain. The cave still exists. The entrance lies near San Ginos; it was opened in 1546 by Archbishop Siliceo, but has never since, according to Forbes, been properly investigated. The story went that in spite of the entreaties of the prelate and some of his great men, Roderic burst open the iron door, and descended into the cave, where he found a bronze statue with a battle-axe in its hands. With this it struck the floor repeatedly, making the hall reverberate with the sound of the blows. Then Roderic read on the wall the inscription, "Unfortunate king, thou hast entered here in evil hour." On the right side of the wall were the words, "By strange nations thou shalt be dispossessed and thy subjects departed." On the shoulders of the statue were written the words, "I summon the Arabs," and on its breast, "I do mine office." The king left the cave sorrowful, and the same night an earthquake wrecked the tower and buried the entrance to the cave.