brief and ridiculous republic, now stood aside and watched the waves go
past him with a semi-contemptuous indifference.

He was too well known in the streets of Saragossa to wander hither and
thither in them, making inquiry as to whether any had seen his lifelong
friend Francisco de Mogente back in the city of his birth from which he
had been exiled in the uncertain days of Isabella. Francisco de Mogente
had been placed in one of those vague positions of Spanish political life
where exile had never been commuted, though friend and enemy would alike
have welcomed the return of a scapegoat on their own terms. But Mogente
had never been the man to make terms--any more than this grim Spanish
nobleman who now sat wondering what his next move must be.

After his early coffee Sarrion went out into the Calle San Gregorio. The
sound of deep voices chanting the matins came to him through the open
doors of the Cathedral of the Seo. A priest hurried past, late, and yet
in time to save his record of services attended. The beggars were
leisurely making their way to the cathedral doors, too lazy to make an
earlier start, philosophically reflecting that the charitable are as
likely to give after matins as before.

The Count went over the ground of the scene that he had witnessed in the
fitful moonlight. Here the man who might have been Francisco de Mogente
had turned on his heel. Here, at the never opened door of a deserted
palace, he had stood for a moment fighting with his back to the wall.
Here he had fallen. From that corner had come aid in the person--Sarrion
was sure--of a friar. It was an odd coincidence, for the Church had never
been the friend of the exiled man, and it was in the days of a
priest-ridden Queen that his foes had triumphed.