While, however, the struggle and contention at the door remained unabated, the ceremonial which all were so anxious to witness had been enacted within. To describe it is needless. The hour when the God-man poured forth his soul even unto death is a sad and awful memory familiar to us all. Let us, therefore, look at the scene which the cathedral presents at two o'clock on that day.
The windows are boarded up on the outside, and within are covered with curtains of heavy black cloth. The walls all round are hung with fine stuff of the same color, concealing the paintings and other ornaments, and the altar is hidden behind drapery of black velvet with ghastly-looking borders of silver. Between this gloomy vail and the cancelli, or railings, you see a magnificent catafalque, and on it [{274}] a coffin covered and lined with rich black velvet. A pale, corpse-like figure, wearing a crown of thorns, lies within, blood flowing from the wounded brow (or appearing to flow) and from the hands which lie outside the winding-sheet of snowy linen. Numerous tapers surround the catafalque, but from some cause they carry such weak, glimmering flames, that a dim, uncertain light pervades the immediate precincts of the altar, leaving the rest of the building in deep shadow. Habited in close-fitting black silk robes, and with heads bowed down as in unspeakable sorrow, several priests stand round the coffin, while fitful wails and sobs from the multitude show that the scene is not without its effect.
An hour passed thus, and was succeeded by a sudden and dismal silence, as if the great heart of the multitude had become exhausted with sorrow, when the melancholy cadences of the Miserere coming down from the huge organ as if rolling from the clouds, awoke up anew the grief of the people, and low cries and half-stifled groans mingled freely with the long-drawn, plaintive notes. Meantime the bishop, habited in his most simple sacerdotal robes, came from the sacristy and stood at the foot of the coffin, while four priests raised it from the catafalque by means of loops of black silk and silver cord. The bishop then moved forward, the dense crowd opening a lane for him as he passed slowly round the church, followed by the four priests carrying the coffin, and by others bearing the dim tapers. As He returned toward the altar the people's sorrow seemed to increase, and every head was stretched forward to catch a last glimpse of the coffin, when just as the procession got within the cancelli a heavy curtain was let fall, shutting in altar, catafalque, and tapers, and leaving the cathedral in utter darkness.
This scene was meant to represent the burial in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, and while the greater portion of the congregation were weeping aloud, a voice was heard proceeding from the pulpit, and pronouncing that preliminary sentence to a sermon known as the "blessing."
In an instant the sounds of grief were hushed, and the mute audience seemed to suppress their very breathing while they anxiously listened to the words of the preacher.
Spoken in a tongue with which few visitors to the island are acquainted, the discourse took to the ears of strangers the shape of a varied murmur, whose tones and cadences played on the very heart-strings of the auditors, awakening at will feelings of fear, agony, remorse, and repentance. As he proceeded, the passion and pathos of his accents increased, and when he ceased to speak a desolate stillness pervaded the whole multitude. Presently two men entered from a side door bearing dim tapers, and at the same moment the great door leading into the Praca was opened, and the congregation poured like a tide into the open air, while low, soft sighs and murmurs falling on the ear told of feelings of relief which words were powerless to express.
For a moment the throng leaving the church mingled with the multitude without. The solid mass swayed like a troubled sea, and then quietly broke up and scattered widely. Men in trade turned their faces homeward, the business of life being, in their judgment, of more importance than any further participation in the day's proceedings. Elderly men and women of the lower classes sought out those houses and temporary sheds, over the doors of which the four golden letters, "P.V.A.B.," served the same purpose as the less mysterious British announcement of "entertainment for man and horse;" while the young peasants and artisans, forming an immense concourse, went shouting toward the Mount road, leaving the streets leading to the beach free from all obstacles, a circumstance of which the more respectable and even aristocratic [{275}] portion of the multitude eagerly availed themselves. Mingling with all parties were ragged-looking vendors of curiosities, clamorous old beggars, and younger ones whose brilliant, laughing black eyes contradicted the earnest appeal of the lips.
Should our taste or curiosity lead us to follow the mob to the Mount road we behold one of those singular exhibitions which excite almost to frenzy--a hideous, straw-stuffed figure, or effigy, of Pontius Pilate, tied on the back of a poor, miserable, lean donkey. Amidst the wildest shouts and fiercest turmoil this creature is dragged forward, every one taxing his inventive faculties to discover new indignities, by which to express his feelings of horror and disgust for the original. While the tumultuous throng thus parade through the principal streets of the town, the bay is seen covered by hundreds of boats, people of almost every nation in Europe reclining beneath their awnings as they sweep slowly over the blue waves toward the Loo Rock, or idly glide in front of that well-known point, beneath which on the sands a gallows had been erected in the morning.
Some hours passed, however, and there was no occurrence either to gratify the taste or arouse the attention of the pleasure seekers. The sun was drawing near the verge of the horizon, and the sea, assuming the most intense shades of crimson, gold, and purple, differed only from the magnificent canopy which it mirrored in that it gleamed with a more wondrous splendor, as if a veil of diamonds floated and trembled over its broad expanse. Not alone the sea, however, but the whole landscape was bathed in the rich amber and purple floods of light which on that evening streamed down from the ever changing firmament. The sublime mountains of Pico Ruivo and Pico Grande were crowned with radiance, the graceful hills, with their unnumbered giant flowers, their gardens and vineyards, their rivulets and waterfalls, glowed in the lustrous beams, while the brown sands on the semi-circular beach, reaching from the picturesque basalts of Garajaô to Ponta da Cruz, glittered as if a shower of diamond sparklets had fallen on them.
At length loud and prolonged shouts, mingling with the music of military bands, were heard approaching from the town, and immediately after a riotous and excited crowd, amongst which appeared hundreds of masquers, came pressing forward with extravagant gestures, and driving before them toward the gallows the ill-used donkey and its foul and hideous burthen.