The Virgin first, diamond-crowned, of gigantic height, with deep-set glassy eyes, one big hand ablaze with rings, raised in benediction; San Fernando, habited in steel, his helmet raised to display his glistening visage, his royal mantle sewn with the emblem of the Nodo of Castile and Leon; the local saints, Justina and Rufina, who, refusing to worship the Phœnician idol Salambo in her temple in Triana, suffered martyrdom; San Tomas and San Lazarus, and the imaginary Santiago, as a heavenly knight, Protector of Spain, clad in the white mantle of his order, a broadsword by his side, and a glory round his casque, carrying the baton of command.
From the balconies and the miradores float damask draperies, striped Moorish stuffs, and wreaths of feathers and flowers; fans wave incessantly in the heavy air, and long black mantillas fall over eyes lustrous under meshes of coal black hair—to the wild ringing of every bell in the city, led by the boom of the Giralda, and petards exploding as of a city taken by assault.
As the procession passes the stone balcony of the Palacio del Ayuntamiento, Don Pedro’s mistress, Maria de Padilla, flashes forth, a dark vision of beauty, crowned with a regal circlet as though she were a queen, by her side her little son Alonso, dark-eyed as she is herself.
Such a sight causes the archbishop to tremble lest a speedy judgment should follow on himself. Yet, spite of the chanting and the prayer, the sacred pasos with their hard unearthly eyes reflecting, as it were, the horror expressed by the archbishop, Don Pedro at once arrests the procession, and with a gracious gesture signs to Maria to descend and take her place beside him. And so godless is he in the eyes of all men, he would insist, but for the confusion which ensues by the sudden stopping of such a crowd and the screaming and cries of those who were pressed together,—when, in the confusion, the glove which he carries in his hand, worked with the arms of Castile, drops on the ground.
Don Juan de Mañara, who is nearest to Don Pedro, rushes to pick it up, but is forestalled by one of the chapter, a stalwart young priest, by name Don Jaime de Colminares. As he is in the very act, on bended knee, of returning the glove, a youth all aflame with passion rushes forth and stabs him in the breast.
A gleam, a cry, a quiver, and all is over. Not a voice is raised, not a hand stirs. Even the archbishop is mute in presence of the king, but his pallid face and the terrified glances of the chapter say more than words.
Not so Don Pedro, who stamps his foot with wrath as he faces the assassin, the least moved among them all.
“Who are you?” asks the king, his voice trembling with rage, “who dare to assume my prerogative of life and death?”
“My name, my lord, is Emanuel Perez,” is the prompt answer as he meets Don Pedro’s furious glance with honest eyes.
“Why have you killed this man?” demands the king, maddened at his coolness, his hand on the hilt of a wrought dagger at his waist, while the archbishop and the chapter draw round to listen.