“The people have given something to a verger not to let others in. I have power of the same kind, if any señor wished me to use it.”
“Here they come!” whispered Dick. “Carmona, Lady Vale-Avon, and Lady Monica.”
We stepped farther back into shadow, though such precaution was hardly needed. It was so dim in the Court of Oranges that the crowd groped its way over the cracked, uneven pavement. Only because they were close upon us, and he was watching, had Dick been able to make out the faces we knew.
“Stop with us,” I said to Colonel O'Donnel's messenger. “You shall have a hundred pesetas if you will open the door of an empty chapel for me, and lock it again when I give the word.”
“But I fear there are no empty ones—” he began.
“Then make one empty. Can you do that—for a hundred pesetas?”
“Yes, señor, I think I can.”
By this time Monica, still in her black mantilla, had flitted past us between her mother and the Duke, but we were following. Dim as it was in the court, the moon looked out from behind the Giralda tower, and it was not dark enough for my project. Inside the cathedral, however (save where blazed the Holy Week monument, an illuminated temple of white and gold), was a mysterious darkness. Not the hundreds of great wax candles sufficed to light the aisles in that vast forest of stone. [pg 257]Stumbling, groping to pass through a hanging veil of shadow, thousands of men and women drifted aimlessly to and fro, themselves black as the shadows they fought, save here and there some soldier whose uniform waked a brief flame of red and gold, or a hooded brother who glowed purple under a lighted pillar.
Purposely we pushed against the people before us, so that in a space black as a lake of ink the trio we followed was separated. The rush of people from behind was so sudden—so well managed by us,—that it took the Duke unawares. The three were caught in the eddy, divided, and before they could come together again I had my arm through Monica's, and was dragging her away, the messenger clinging to me closely.
“Don't be frightened,” I said. “It's I—Ramón. I have to speak with you.”