Cape Bojador: The Gateway to Hell

Mario Freitas, a young Portuguese mariner, is captured by Barbary pirates. The same pirates capture the beautiful young Countess of Zaragossa. They are both stripped and sold as slaves to the emir of Meknes with whom the countess eventually falls in love. Mario spends his years as a slave roaming the deserts with the camel caravans. He learns the secrets of navigation by the stars. He is condemned to be crucified but is saved when the Portuguese capture Ceuta in 1415. He returns to Portugal to search for Elena. Under Prince Henry the Navigator he establishes the world-famous Navigation School at Sagres where mariners can, at last, learn how to navigate the open ocean using the stars. He directs the attempts to conquer Bojador, the gateway to hell, the evil cape, where the early mariner believed sea monsters lurked, where giant lodestones would draw the nails from his ship and where he would be borne by the waters cascading over the edge of the flat earth to tumble forever in the void.