The Conquistador, it appeared, on setting out on his perilous mission, had vowed to the Virgin that if through her aid he succeeded in ousting the heathen from Majorca, he would signalize his victory by building a noble Cathedral in her honour; and it was in quarrying the stone from the steep ground by the side of the torrente that the great cave had been formed. He told us of the refugees who, fleeing before the cholera, had camped there in safety; and brought the record up to date by mentioning that to the present day on the Sunday after Easter great crowds of the townsfolk made a little pilgrimage to the Holy Well, to drink its waters and to eat their empanadas—pies made specially of lamb for the occasion.
The cave was near—only a little way, he added, as he hurried to overtake his now straying herd. If we would proceed farther down the side of the torrente we would discover it, close by the old well.
So in the sunshine, which was warm without a trace of oppression, for the sea air agreeably tempered the heat, we wandered on until, in the side of a fir-topped bank, we found the cave.
And it was quite unlike anything we had imagined. To enter by the wide square portal was to find oneself in a vast, many-chambered hall. In quarrying out the interior the long-forgotten workmen had left at intervals great rudely sculptured blocks that served as supporting pillars to the roof. Four square holes, open to the sky, afforded ventilation. Round the walls, and about the bases of the pillars, had been hewn ledges which might have served for seats or for beds.
At one point the roof had been blackened by smoke from the fugitives' fires. But the whole interior was dry and airy. There was not a trace of damp anywhere, and the sandy floor was one that could easily have been kept clean and wholesome. It would have been hard to imagine a more secure or a more sanitary place of refuge.
Down below, nearer the river-bed, was the quaint Moorish well—square in form, with a domed roof. And looking down the valley of the torrente from the brow of the hill in front of the cave where the fig-trees grew, we had a grand prospect of Palma Cathedral, that from each variant point of view seems to gain a new beauty.
An unwonted silence lay over the sunlit land. For once there was no sound of human voice uplifted in song, and that aided the sense of peace. The Balearic islander is the most skilful market-gardener in the world. He makes roads that enable one to drive up one side of a mountain and down the other with perfect ease. He builds walls that look as though they would last throughout the ages and successfully resist a shock of earthquake at the end of time. But as a vocalist he is not attractive.
I must write this heresy in a whisper, for the information would surprise him. He is unconscious of his lack of melody, and rather fancies himself as a songster. The merry Majorcan plough-boy does not "whistle o'er the lea." He sings, or rather chants, in a loud, discordant voice, an artless recitative, apparently improvising both words and music and weaving the little incidents of the day, the trivial happenings of his surroundings, into his interminable lay.
When the Boy was painting in the beautiful undulating country that lay between Son Españolet and the mountains, he sometimes discovered a reference to himself in the pastorale.
"It is the painter English.
He is making a picture.
He has put Gabriel into it.
Perhaps he will put me also,
And my fine pigs."