"Vitol el pare San Bernat! Hurrah for father San Bernardo!" a multitude of hoarse voices cried.
"Vitol les chermanetes! Hurrah for his sisters!" others added, to correct the lack of gallantry displayed by the most enthusiastic of the idolators in putting ladies last.
For the sisters, the holy martyrs, Gracia and Maria, also figured in the procession. San Bernardo never went anywhere alone. As even children in baby-school knew, not a power on earth, not all the men and horses in the orchards put together, could lift the saint from his altar unless his sisters went first. That was one of his miracles long accredited by tradition. He had very little confidence in women—less pious commentators said—and not willing to trust his sisters out of sight, he insisted that they precede him whenever he left his pedestal.
The holy sisters appeared in the church doorway, swaying on their litters above the heads of the worshippers.
"Vitol les chermanetes!"
And the poor chermanetes, dripping from every fold of their vestments, came out into that dark, tempestuous, rain-soaked atmosphere that was rent by sheaves of crude light from the tapers.
The musicians tuned their instruments, ready to break into the Royal March! In the brilliantly lighted doorway something shining could be seen laboriously advancing, swaying this way and that, as if the waves of an angry sea were rocking it.
The crowd again began to cheer, and the music sounded.
"Vitol el pare San Bernat!"
But the music and the acclamations were drowned by a deafening crash, as if the island had suddenly burst into a thousand pieces, dragging the city to the depths of the Abyss. The square was shooting a fusillade of lightning flashes, a veritable cannonade. Those ancient arms, blunderbusses, muzzle-loaders, pistols, crammed full of powder, could roar like artillery. All the guns in the neighborhood were saluting the appearance of the Saint. And the crowd, drunk with the smell of powder, began to shout and gesticulate in the presence of that bronze image, whose round, kindly face—that of a healthy well-fed friar—seemed to quiver with life in the light of the torches.