"Second," he continued. "The Saint's boyhood. The book he is reading, in the shadow of the wayside shrine, is the 'Little Hours of the Blessed Virgin.' The scroll reads, Zelus domus tuae comedit me: The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up.' The games the other boys are playing are played in Portuguese villages to-day. The bullock-carts are unchanged also. Notice the two cats—lanky cats with long clever heads; they are Portuguese cats all over."
The third picture was pierced by the doorway which gave access to the cloisters; and the designers of the azulejos had made bold use of what might have been a disfigurement. The picture showed a small monastery. The gables, the dormer windows, the round arches, and the stumpy belfry of this little monastery were depicted in blue, on the tiles; but where there ought to have been a blue-painted doorway one saw the solid jamb and lintel of the doorway through which young Crowberry and the others had entered the chapel. The figure of the Saint was nowhere to be seen; but all the men and women in the picture were crowding hurriedly towards the doorway as if they would see the last of somebody who had passed into the cloister. Above the solid lintel chubby blue boys were painted lying on their chests and trying to look down into the building.
"The Saint," Antonio explained, "has entered a religious house. And as that religious house was this very abbey, you see the point of the doorway. On the scroll, Magister adest et vocat te: 'The Master is here and calleth thee.'"
Antonio successively pointed out the pictures of the Saint's first Mass, with blue angels helping to uphold the Chalice, and of the Saint's first miracle, with Oporto in the distance. This ended the series on the north wall. At the marble balustrade of the gilded sanctuary, he explained the stalls, the retablo, and the boldly-ribbed Gothic vaulting, at least a century older than the nave. Then he worked back along the south wall, making short comments on the Saint's shipwreck and second miracle, his preaching to prisoners, his landing in England, and his visit to the Abbey of Westminster, once Benedictine.
"Your Westminster Abbey looks strange," said Antonio. "It is before the alterations of Wren; but I admit the faults of the picture. The next one is better. It is the Saint's death at—I think you pronounce it Tyburn. The horses and most of the faces are quite English. The hurdle on which he has been drawn is broken. Notice the one-eyed man with the butcher's knife. On the scroll are the Saint's last words, the same as Saint Stephen's, Domine ne statuas illis hoc peccatum: 'Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.'"
This tenth, and last of the tile-pictures was on the left of the western door; but not until Antonio ceased speaking did he notice a small leather-covered box resting on the ground at the foot of the green and yellow border of azulejos. It was gilt-lettered P. L. K.-T. The lid was off, showing the stoppers of four chemists' bottles and some fine steel tools.
In the same instant, both Antonio and young Crowberry had the same thought. "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." The words were grimly appropriate to Sir Percy's act of sacrilege; yet young Crowberry felt sure that Antonio had only recognized their appropriateness when it was too late. As for the monk, although his eyes met Isabel's for no more than a moment, he saw that she was wounded.
"When was the Saint hanged?" asked young Crowberry, in order to end the awkward pause. "In what reign?"
"In the reign of Isabel," Antonio answered.
Young Crowberry opened his eyes wide. The monk, however, had already realized his second mishap.