At that moment, a man with unpleasant features, thin, bony, and cross-eyed, too, hurriedly made his way to the place where the prelate was sitting.
“Master Pérez is sick,” he said. “The ceremony cannot begin. If it is your pleasure, I will play the organ in his absence; for neither is Master Pérez the first organist of the world, nor at his death need this instrument be left unused for lack of skill.”
The archbishop gave a nod of assent, and already some of the faithful, who recognized in that strange personage an envious rival of the organist of Santa Inés, were breaking out in exclamations of displeasure, when suddenly a startling uproar was heard in the portico.
“Master Pérez is here! Master Pérez is here!”
At these cries from the press in the doorway, every one looked around.
Master Pérez, his face pallid and drawn, was in fact entering the church, brought in a chair about which all were contending for the honor of carrying it upon their shoulders.
The commands of the physicians, the tears of his daughter had not been able to keep him in bed.
“No,” he had said. “This is the end, I know it, I know it, and I would not die without visiting my organ, and this night above all, Christmas Eve. Come, I wish it, I command it; let us go to the church.”
His desire had been fulfilled. The people carried him in their arms to the organ-loft, and the mass began.
At that instant the cathedral clock struck twelve.