A young captain of the guards of the Spanish king, Alfonse van Worden, travels on his own through the wild Sierra Morena. One night in a gloomy inn he meets two Moorish princesses who tell him that as a descendant of the mighty Gomelez family he has been chosen for great deeds. First, however, he has to prove his courage, righteousness and honour. Alfonse becomes a centre of extraordinary events, he is haunted by the possessed, hanged men, and he is persecuted by the Inquisition. Finally, he gets to a castle of a mysterious Cabalist and spends many days listening to his weird, ambiguous stories about even weirder events in this world.