“This Plaza is Blanco, Señor,” he said.
“What of it?”
“Perhaps, Señor, you know little of affairs here. Let me then warn you, as a native, never to make use of that name. It is a Red name, Red as the grid of hell, where I yet shall see those Red accursed roasting. We of the Whites call him the Grande. And truly he is Grande. He is the Lion of the Faith, Grandissimo. Yet even that name, in certain parts, among certain people, it is not prudent to speak aloud.”
“It is very true,” Sard answered. “Truly a man digs his grave with his teeth, but assuredly he cuts his throat with his tongue.”
“Assuredly.”
“Viva Don Manuel,” Sard said, “to the great race the great ruler.”
“Amen, indeed, Señor.”
“When will you close?” Sard asked.
“At one in the morning, Señor; lo, now the day passes.”
One of the bells of Santa Barbara very sweetly chimed for the hour. Instantly, from all over the city, other bells began either to strike or to chime till the air was trembling with sweetness of sound which melted into the midnight and made it deeper. Some of the ships in the bay made eight bells: a clock in the House of the Dying Sighs struck: it was midnight. Now while the deepness of a tenor bell was toning, there came, from Cachopos, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, the exquisite song of the nuns of Santa Alba at their midnight office. Sard was spellbound. All the night had ceased to be of men and folly: it had become suddenly a thing of stars and flowers and of the joy of the soul in her God.