“On hearing these words, amazement was painted on the faces of as many as were in the portico; silent and motionless, so they would have remained God knows how long if the following narrative of the terrified keeper had not caused them to gather in groups around him, greedy for every word.
“ ‘Pardon me, señores,’ said the poor warden, ‘and I will conceal nothing from you, however much it may be against me.’
“All maintained silence and he went on as follows:
“ ‘I shall never succeed in giving the reason, but the fact is that the story of the empty armor always seemed to me a fable manufactured in favor of some noble personage whom perhaps grave reasons of public policy did not permit the judges to make known or to punish.
“ ‘I was ever of this belief—a belief in which I could not but be confirmed by the immobility in which the armor remained from the hour when, by the order of the tribunal, it was brought a second time to the prison. In vain, night after night, desiring to surprise its secret, if secret there were, I crept up little by little and listened at the cracks of the iron door of its dungeon. Not a sound was perceptible.
“ ‘In vain I managed to observe it through a small hole made in the wall; thrown upon a little straw in one of the darkest corners, it remained day after day disordered and motionless.
“ ‘One night, at last, pricked by curiosity and wishing to convince myself that this object of terror had nothing mysterious about it, I lighted a lantern, went down to the dungeons, drew their double bolts and, not taking the precaution to shut the doors behind me, so firm was my belief that all this was no more than an old wives’ tale, entered the cell. Would I had never done it! Scarcely had I taken a few steps when the light of my lantern went out of itself and my teeth began to chatter and my hair to rise. Breaking the profound silence that encompassed me, I had heard something like a sound of metal pieces which stirred and clanked in fitting themselves together in the gloom.
“ ‘My first movement was to throw myself toward the door to bar the passage, but on grasping its panels I felt upon my shoulders a formidable hand, gauntleted, which, after jerking me violently aside, flung me upon the threshold. There I remained until the next morning when my subordinates found me unconscious and, on reviving, only able to recollect that after my fall I had seemed to hear, confusedly, a sounding tread accompanied by the clatter of spurs, which little by little grew more distant until it died away.’
“When the warden had finished, profound silence reigned, on which there followed an infernal outbreak of lamentations, shouts and threats.
“It was with difficulty that the more temperate could control the populace, who, infuriated at this last turn of affairs, demanded with fierce outcry the death of the inquisitive author of their new disappointment.