Then two men, a Jew and a Moor, advance from the crowd, one an aged Rabbi, with a long white beard, habited in a Hebrew gabardine reaching to the ground, the other a young Arab of stately presence, fully equipped for battle, the nephew of Caliph Azataff, but without casque or scimitar—both bearing offerings to the King. The Jewish gift is an iron key, bearing on the wards the words in Hebrew: “The King of kings shall open; the King of all the earth shall enter.” The Moor also bears a key, but it is of silver, inscribed in Arabic characters with the motto: “May Allah render the dominion of Islam eternal;” and as the young knight offers it to Fernando, kneeling in the dust beside his stirrup, he raises his other hand to put back the bitter tears that blind his eyes.
At the moment King Fernando entered Seville, the caliph fled by the side where is now the Hospital del Sangre, near to the Convent of San Jeronima in the fields, on the spot where the lepers had their ancient refuge.
Whither the caliph went no one knew, or if he died by his own hand or that of another, Fernando little heeding his fate as he passed into the city to take possession of the castle of the Alcazar.
And there he lived till he died, and was buried in the Capilla Real of the great mosque he turned into a cathedral.
Over the altar, placed on a silver throne embossed with the double knout of Castile and Leon, sits the little ivory image of the Virgen de los Reyes, given him by St. Louis—the same mediæval figure, with a glistening gown, hair spun in gold, and shoes worked with Gallic lillies and the word Amor, he always carried on his saddle-bow in battle.
The Capilla Real is a church within a church, entered by golden gates behind the altar, where, under a richly incrusted dome, in a shell-shaped vault, lies Saint Fernando in a crystal coffin. The body is wonderfully preserved. On his head is the pointed crown he wore in life, and his royal mantle is wrapped about his loins. On one side lies the sword with which he fought his way into Toledo and Seville, on the other the baton of command. Beside him rest his son, Alonso the Wise, and his Queen Beatrice, and on a wall near at hand are the medallions of the chivalric brothers Don Garcia and Don Diego de Varga.
The hour to enter the cathedral is at the Ave Maria, when the sun is low and its rays tremble on the burnished walls in irises of gold, and the great painted windows stand out in a pale light, alive with venerable forms of law-givers, prophets, and kings; the delicate curves of the arches melt into dim lines, and rays of yellow light pierce like arrows across the floor.
Then the sculptured saints seem to take form and live, the flying pipes of the twin organs to glitter like angels’ wings, the statues in the choir to murmur in strange tongues, the many famous pictures which line the walls to grow terrible in the half-light, with dark forms of archbishops and priests, monks and canons long laid to rest in the repose of painted shrines, beside which deacons keep watch with silver croziers; and from the boundless gloom a burst of sound rolls forth like the thunder of an earthquake from the deep-mouthed pipes of the two organs, replying to each other as in a voice of Titans—the rattle of conquering drums, the shrill bray of trumpets, the crying voice of pipes, and all the clash and clamour as of a battle-field.
On the anniversary of St. Fernando’s death the troops still march in to hear the military mass and to lower the standard of Spain before his body, each soldier bearing a lighted torch. Once it was a company of a hundred Moors, bareheaded, who carried the torches to the royal bier, sent in token of submission by the Caliph of Granada. Could any conqueror wish for more?