"Yes," answered Marcos in an odd and restrained voice. "To bring Juanita back."
[
CHAPTER XVIII]
THE MAKERS OF HISTORY
Number Five Calle de la Merced is to this day an empty house, like many in Saragossa, presenting to the passer-by a dusty stone face and huge barred windows over which the spiders have drawn their filmy curtain. For one reason or another there are many empty houses in the larger cities of Spain and many historical names have passed away. With them have faded into oblivion some religious orders and not a few kindred brotherhoods.
Number Five Calle de la Merced has its history like the rest of the monasteries, and the rounded cobblestones of the large courtyard bear to-day a black stain where, the curious inquirer will be told, the caretakers of the empty house have been in the habit of cooking their bread on a brazier of charcoal fanned into glow with a palm leaf scattering the ashes. But the true story of the black stain is in reality quite otherwise. For it was here that the infuriated people burnt the chapel furniture when the monasteries of Saragossa were sacked.
The Sarrions left their carriage at the corner of the Calle de la Merced, in the shadow of a tall house, for the sun was already strong at midday though the snow lay on the hills round Torre Garda. They found the house closely barred. The dust and the cobwebs were undisturbed on the huge windows. The house was as empty as it had been these forty years.
Marcos tried the door, which resisted his strength like a wall. It was a true monastic door with no crack through which even a fly could pass.
"That house stands empty," said an old woman who passed by. "It has stood empty since I was a girl. It is accursed. They killed the good fathers there."
Sarrion thanked her and walked on. Marcos was examining the dust on the road out of the corners of his eyes.
"Two carriages have stopped here," he said, "at this small door which looks as if it belonged to the next house."