At this point Don Juan, feeling the approach of death, added in a terrible voice:  “Be careful of the flask!”

Then he died gently in the arms of his son, whose tears fell upon his ironical and sallow face.

It was nearly midnight when Don Philippe Belvidero placed his father’s corpse on the table.  After kissing the stern forehead and the gray hair he put out the lamp.  The soft rays of the moonlight which cast fantastic reflections over the scenery allowed the pious Philippe to discern his father’s body dimly, as something white in the midst of the darkness.  The young man moistened a cloth in the liquid and then, deep in prayer, he faithfully anointed the revered head.  The silence was intense.  Then he heard indescribable rustlings, but he attributed them to the wind among the tree-tops.  When he had bathed the right arm he felt himself rudely seized at the back of the neck by an arm, young and vigorous—­the arm of his father!  He gave a piercing cry, and dropped the phial, which fell on the floor and broke.  The liquid flowed out.

The whole household rushed in, bearing torches.  The cry had aroused and frightened them as if the trumpet of the last judgment had shaken the world.  The room was crowded with people.  The trembling throng saw Don Philippe, fainting, but held up by the powerful arm of his father, which clutched his neck.  Then they saw a supernatural sight, the head of Don Juan, young and beautiful as an Antinoues, a head with black hair, brilliant eyes and crimson lips, a head that moved in a blood-curdling manner without being able to stir the skeleton to which it belonged.

An old servant cried:  “A miracle!”

And all the Spaniards repeated:  “A miracle!”

Too pious to admit the possibility of magic, Dona Elvira sent for the Abbot of San Lucas.  When the priest saw the miracle with his own eyes he resolved to profit by it, like a man of sense, and like an abbot who asked nothing better than to increase his revenues.  Declaring that Don Juan must inevitably be canonized, he appointed his monastery for the ceremony of the apotheosis.  The monastery, he said, should henceforth be called “San Juan de Lucas.”  At these words the head made a facetious grimace.

The taste of the Spaniards for this sort of solemnities is so well known that it should not be difficult to imagine the religious spectacle with which the abbey of San Lucas celebrated the translation of “the blessed Don Juan Belvidero” in its church.  A few days after the death of this illustrious nobleman, the miracle of his partial resurrection had been so thoroughly spread from village to village throughout a circle of more than fifty leagues round San Lucas that it was as good as a play to see the curious people on the road.  They came from all sides, drawn by the prospect of a “Te Deum” chanted by the light of burning torches.  The ancient mosque of the monastery of San Lucas, a wonderful building,