"Is a place where the gold-dust is washed from the sand. Ignez shall be heiress of as many pistoles as would fill yonder brigantine to the beams."
"Bueno! then we shall see what we shall see. I am beginning to tire of this kind of life, and long for salt-water again."
The night of the 8th December drew on, and Pedro, with his brother, were among the first who repaired to the Plazuela de la Campagnia. Long before the doors of the vast church were open, hundreds of splendid carriages, rolling from all quarters of the city, deposited ladies in rich summer dresses and ample crinolines—large beyond any that we see in Europe—at the high-arched portal, through which, and through every window of that lofty pile, there glared a marvellous blaze of light, for the edifice had been illuminated with a splendour never seen before. Consequently the excitement in Santiago was great, and great was the competition among the wealthy and well-born to procure admission.
It was the great festival of the Immaculate Conception, and more than 20,000 lights and lamps, of every brilliant colour, mostly camphine, garlanded the pillars, encircled the arches, lined the cornices, or were festooned across the great church, and so many coloured globes were used on this occasion, that the whole interior resembled a hall of dazzling fire. All was light and radiance—there could be no shadow anywhere.
The great altar was a veritable pyramid of light, amid which there shone a marvellous image of the Madonna, copied from Murillo's famous picture. Her eyes were turned to heaven, her hands were crossed upon her breast; her feet were placed upon a crescent moon, and clouds of snow-white gauze and muslin seemed to float around her.
Never had such a display been witnessed in this old church of the Jesuits (since the marriage of the Conde de Sierra Bella, whose palace yet stands in the great plaza), for old it was, when compared with other buildings in the city, having been founded in the early part of the seventeenth century.
From the floor the altar rose to the roof of the church, and as it did not reach from wall to wall, on each side were great reliquaries, closed by doors so richly gilded, that they shone like two vast plates of polished gold.
All on their knees before it knelt a congregation composed of 2,000 women (and a few hundred men), all richly attired, and many of them young, noble, and beautiful. It was a sight such as never before had been witnessed in Santiago.
Thanks to the favour of the Nuncio, Donna Ignez, with her cousin, Don Perez, and his sisters, Donna Erminia and the little Donna Paula, had procured places close to the glittering rail which surrounded the vast altar, and there they were speedily joined by Pedro, who left his brother among the valets in livery at the church porch, and who, utterly indifferent to, or oblivious of the long stare and steady frown bestowed upon him by Don Perez, presented his hand to Ignez, and—after he had devoutly crossed himself, and smote his breast sundry times—prepared to join in a whispered conversation, for the service had not yet commenced.
During the livelong day an idea that he was dead—that he had been suffocated in the closet—had haunted the mind of Ignez, who felt herself as if an accomplice in a great crime, and thus, when she found him kneeling beside her in church, she gave him her daintily-gloved little hand with a bright smile, that was full of real happiness; for though this man had so nearly destroyed her honour, she was most thankful to Heaven that he had not perished, as her fears predicted.