Romantic legends of Spain

by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

A long time they went on, traversing the streets of Toledo, seeking a suitable place to end their quarrel, but the darkness of the night was so dense that the duel seemed impossible. Yet both wished to fight and to fight before the whitening of the east; for at dawn the royal hosts were to go forth, and Alonso with them.

So they pressed on, threading at random deserted squares, dusky alleys, long and gloomy passages, till at last they saw shining in the distance a light, a light small and waning, about which the mist formed a circle of ghostly, glimmering lustre.

They had reached the Street of the Christ, and the radiance discernible at one end seemed to come from the small lantern which illuminated then and illuminates still the image that gives the street its name.

On seeing it, both let escape an exclamation of joy and, quickening their steps toward it, were not long in finding themselves near the shrine in which it burned.

An arched recess in the wall, in the depths of which might be seen the image of the Redeemer, nailed to the cross, with a skull at his feet, a rude board covering for protection from the weather, and a small lantern hung by a cord, swaying with the wind and shedding a faint effulgence, constituted the entire shrine. About it clung festoons of ivy which had sprung up among the dark and broken stones forming, as it were, a curtain of verdure.

The cavaliers, after reverently saluting the image of Christ by removing their military caps and murmuring a short prayer, glanced over the ground, threw off their mantles and, each perceiving the other to be ready for the combat and both giving the signal by a slight motion of the head, crossed swords. But scarcely had the blades touched when, before either of the combatants had been able to take a single step or strike a blow, the light suddenly went out, leaving the street plunged in utter darkness. As if moved by the same thought, the two antagonists, on finding themselves surrounded by that instantaneous gloom, took a step backward, lowered the points of their swords to the ground and raised their eyes to the lantern, whose light, a moment before extinguished, began to shine anew at the very instant the duel was suspended.

“It must have been some passing gust that lowered the flame,” exclaimed Carrillo, placing himself again on guard, and giving warning to Lope, who seemed preoccupied.

Lope took a step forward to recover the lost ground, extended his arm and the blades touched once more, but at their touching the light again went out of itself, remaining thus until the swords separated.

“In truth, but this is strange!” murmured Lope, gazing at the lantern which had begun spontaneously to burn again. The gleam, slowly wavering with the wind, spread a tremulous, wonderful radiance over the yellow skull placed at the feet of Christ.

“Bah!” said Alonso, “it must be because the holy woman who has charge of the lamp cheats the devotees and scants the oil, so that the light, almost out, brightens and then darkens again in its dying agony.”