"You are badly hurt, my son."

"Yes; you had better not try to lift me, though you are a strong man."

"I will go for help," said the monk.

"Lay help," suggested the wounded man curtly. But the friar was already
out of earshot.

In an astonishingly short space of time the friar returned, accompanied
by two men, who had the air of indoor servants and the quiet movements of
street-bred, roof-ridden humanity.

Mindful of his cloth, the friar stood aside, unostentatiously and firmly
refusing to take the lead even in a mission of mercy. He stood with
humbly-folded hands and a meek face while the two men lifted Don
Francisco de Mogente on to a long narrow blanket, the cloak of Navarre
and Aragon, which one of them had brought with him.

They bore him slowly away, and the friar lingered behind. The moon shone
down brightly into the narrow street and showed a great patch of blood
amid the cobblestones. In Saragossa, as in many Spanish cities, certain
old men are employed by the municipal authorities to sweep the dust of
the streets into little heaps. These heaps remain at the side of the
streets until the dogs and the children and the four winds disperse the
dust again. It is a survival of the middle ages, interesting enough in
its bearing upon the evolution of the modern municipal authority and the
transmission of intellectual gifts.

The friar looked round him, and had not far to look. There was a dust