Within the church, gloom and silence held possession. A little distance off was the walled cemetery. Leaving an environment that threatened to depress us, we scrambled down the farther side of the rocky incline, and, finding a path, followed it.
The path, chosen at random, passed in front of Son Mas, a quaint old building whose tower bore signs of great antiquity. The place was evidently now in use as a farm-house, and the tenant, seeing us pause to look in through the wide gateway, came out and cordially invited us to enter.
He was a fine specimen of the handsome, robust sons of that gracious soil. His sun-tanned skin and workaday garb seemed at variance with his courteous dignity of manner, which admirably became the resident of so ancient a mansion. He appeared to feel a special pride in his surroundings and did not scamp the showing. Through the wide courtyard, and up the central staircase that led to the balconies, and through the deserted rooms he escorted us.
The tall square tower that now formed part of the house, he told us, had in older times been used as a place of refuge by the Christians during the attacks of the piratical Moors who infested the coast—a stronghold to which they fled when news reached them that the heathen marauders had entered the port and were advancing towards the town. Would we like to see it?
Would we not! Following our leader, we passed along more corridors and over floors aslant with age, till he stopped before the entrance to what was probably the smallest winding stair ever devised for the passage of human beings.
Up that very stair, our guide assured us, had the Christians fled to seek safety in the tower. And as we timorously mounted the narrow steps we agreed that the Andraitx early Christians must have been the leanest of mankind. For one plump Christian in a hurry would assuredly have brought destruction on all the rest by sticking in the first bend of that pitch-dark winding staircase.
We emerged, dusty and breathless, into a square room whose window framed a magnificent view over the town and the wide fruitful valley to the shining waters of the port beyond.
In one of the walls was a groined cavity that had been a shrine. And close beside it was the now walled-up doorway that, when the tower stood apart, had been connected by a drawbridge with the main building.
On the dusty floor in a corner lay some curious earthenware retorts of a primitive date. The vessels had been found in an old cabinet in company with a quantity of unknown drugs—presumably the stock of some long-dead alchemist. Scientific men, hearing of the discovery, had hastened to carry off the chemicals, the farmer told us, leaving the earthenware behind.