“The greater part of the spectators, at the sight of the new prodigy, forsook the room tumultuously and rushed in terror to the square.
“The news spread with the speed of thought among the multitude who were awaiting impatiently the result of the trial; and such was the alarm, the excitement and the clamor, that no one longer doubted what the popular voice had asserted from the first—that the Devil, on the death of the Count of the Segre, had inherited the fiefs of Bellver.
“At last the tumult subsided, and it was decided to return the miraculous armor to the dungeon.
“When this was so bestowed, they despatched four envoys, who, as representing the perplexed town, should present the case to the royal Count of Urgel and the archbishop. In a few days these envoys returned with the decision of those dignitaries, a decision brief and comprehensive.
“ ‘Let the armor be hanged,’ they said, ‘in the central square of the town; if the Devil occupies it, he will find it necessary to abandon it or to be strangled with it.’
“The people of Bellver, enchanted with so ingenious a solution, again assembled in council, ordered a very high gallows to be erected in the square, and when once more the multitude filled the approaches to the prison, went thither for the armor in a body with all the civic dignity which the importance of the case demanded.
“When this honorable delegation arrived at the massive arch giving entrance to the building, a pallid and distracted man threw himself to the ground in the presence of the astonished bystanders, exclaiming with tears in his eyes:
“ ‘Pardon, señores, pardon!’
“ ‘Pardon! For whom?’ said some, ‘for the Devil, who dwells in the armor of the Count of the Segre?’
“ ‘For me,’ continued with shaking voice the unhappy man in whom all recognized the chief warden of the prison, ‘for me—because the armor—has disappeared.’