heap close by. He plunged his large brown hands into it, and with a few
quick movements covered all traces of the calamity of which he had so
nearly been a witness.

Then, with a quick, meek look either way, he followed the two men, who
had just disappeared round a corner. The street, which, by the way, is
called the Calle San Gregorio, was, of course, deserted; the tall houses
on either side were closely shuttered. Many of the balconies bore a
branch of palm across the iron railings, the outward sign of priesthood.
For the cathedral clergy live here. And, doubtless, the holy men within
had been asleep many hours.

Across the end of the Calle San Gregorio, and commanding that narrow
street, stood the Palacio Sarrion--an empty house the greater part of the
year--a vast building, of which the windows increased in size as they
mounted skywards. There were wrought-iron balconies, of which the window
embrasures were so deep that the shutters folded sideways into the wall
instead of swinging back as in houses of which the walls were of normal
thickness.

The friar was probably accustomed to seeing the Palacio Sarrion rigidly
shut up. He never, in his quick, humble scrutiny of his surroundings
glanced up at it. And, therefore, he never saw a man sitting quietly
behind the curiously wrought railings, smoking a cigarette--a man who had
witnessed the whole incident from beginning to end. Who had, indeed, seen
more than the friar or the two quiet men-servants. For he had seen a
stick--probably a sword-stick, such as nearly every Spanish gentleman
carries in his own country--fly from the hand of Don Francisco de Mogente
at the moment when he was attacked, and fall into the gutter on the
darker side of the street, where it lay unheeded. Where, indeed, it still