“Another fan? Do you never carry the same twice?”
“Oh, yes, she has to, poor child,” said Pemberton. “She possesses only fifty-five fans; Luz, I hear, owns three hundred and fifty. You’re feeling fit, I hope? We have a long day before us. We go first to San Lorenzo to see the monument,—sepulchre you call it in Italy. Concepcion says we shall be in time to see the arrival of the royal party. They must go on foot like the rest of us to-day; not a bell may ring, not a wheel turn in all Seville, this week, from Wednesday night till Saturday noon.”
Only the wheel of the Brother of Light, the wandering knife grinder of La Mancha!
The Plaza San Lorenzo was filled with people, the trees with small boys; a mannerly crowd with no hoodlums; indeed, I think the genus does not exist in Spain. Soon the word was passed: “They are coming.” The throng shifted, a way was made for the king’s halberdiers, fierce men with twisted moustachios and bronzed skins, the very flower of the army. Their duty is to guard, day and night, the person of the King. The civil governor, Lopez Balesteros, followed with his aides, and the Alcalde of Seville, a bulky, puffing man. His gown and his fat made it hard for him to keep the pace of those tough, quick-marching swashbucklers. Last, surrounded by his major domos of the week and his gentlemen of the chamber, the King, long of leg, slender of body, with the heavy, underhung jaw, the slovenly nether lip of the Hapsburgs, a boyish dignity, and a frank smile all his own. He wore a smart uniform with a white plumed helmet.
PORTRAIT OF PHILIP II. Coello
“Don Alfonzo has as many incarnations as Jupiter,” said Pemberton. “To-day he is a major general of cavalry. Notice that gold chain and tell me, if you can, what it is.”
The chain, wide and flat, with elaborately wrought links, was flung over the King’s shoulders. From it hung a little gold animal uncomfortably tied by the middle; its head and legs all flopping down in a dreadful way, like a horse being hoisted on board ship.