“WHOOP!” sounded suddenly from over Pilarica’s head, and a red Turkish fez came flying down from the high garden-wall, alighting neatly on the top of the solitary column. At the edge of that wall a sturdy, square-chinned boy, by way of getting up his courage for the leap, was chanting an old nursery rhyme:
“There was a Señor Don Cat.
In a chair of gold he sat.
In a suit of silk he was clad,
And pointed shoes he had.
His Godfather came and said:
‘If you would like to wed
A beautiful Moorish tabby,
Take a walk on the roof of the abbey.’
But when he saw her there,
He tumbled into the air,
And on the cloister stones
Arrived with broken bones.”
Thump! The boy was sitting on the ground, in the very center of the summer-house, vigorously rubbing those portions of his body which had suffered most in the adventure; but as Pilarica, with the deference due to an athlete as well as to a brother, sprang up and handed him his cap, he flung it on, cocked it jauntily and shook back the gilt tassels that were tickling his ears.
“This is a magic cap and, when I wear it, I am anybody I choose to be,” announced the new-comer, somewhat breathlessly. “I am now,” he continued, still sitting on the ground but waving his arms suggestively, “Rafael the Archangel.”
“You are welcome to your house, my lord Archangel,” faltered Pilarica, not forgetting her manners, but holding her precious castanets tightly clasped behind her back.
“What have you there?” queried Rafael, pulling off his hempen sandals and anxiously inspecting the soles of his feet.
Poor little Pilarica, into whom courtesy had been instilled as the first of all the virtues, winked hard, but held out the castanets toward her brother.
“They are at your service,” she faltered. But Rafael, too, could practise the Andalusian graces when he had a mind.
“They are very well placed where they are,” he returned affably in the set phrase proper to the occasion and, giving his gay fez a twirl, he added: “I am not the Archangel any more, but the high and mighty Moor Abdorman Murambil Xarif, master of this palace. You are my Christian captive and will now dance for me.”