the Cathedral would shelter him for ever.

In the profound stillness of the cloister, that the sound of the
street could not reach, the "companion" Luna thought he heard far off,
very far off, the shrill sound of a trumpet and the muffled roll
of drums, then he remembered the Alcazar of Toledo, dominating the
Cathedral from its height, intimidating it with the enormous mass of
its towers; they were the drums and trumpets of the Military Academy.

These sounds were painful to Gabriel; the world had faded from his
sight, and when he thought himself so very far from it, he could still
feel its presence only a little way beyond the roof of the temple.




CHAPTER II


Since the times of the second Cardinal de Bourbon Senior Esteban Luna
had been gardener of the Cathedral, by the right that seemed firmly
established in his family. Who was the first Luna that entered the
service of the Holy Metropolitan Church? As the gardener asked himself
this question he smiled complacently, raising his eyes to heaven, as
though he would inquire of the immensity of space. The Lunas were as
ancient as the foundations of the church; a great many generations
had been born in the abode in the upper cloister, and even before the
illustrious Cisneros built the Claverias the Lunas had lived in houses
adjacent, as though they could not exist out of the shadow of the
Primacy. To no one did the Cathedral belong with better right than