“Since you will it so, so let it be,” he said gravely.  “Let the Saint come forth, and may the Lord have mercy on us!”

A frenzied acclamation burst from the crowd, which now filled the whole square in front of the church.  The rain continued falling, and above the serried ranks of heads covered with skirts, cloaks, and an occasional umbrella, the flames of the tapers flickered, staining the wet faces red.

The people smiled happily in all their discomfort from the downpour.  Confident of success, they were foretasting gleefully the terror of the stream at sight of the blessed image entering its waters.  What could not San Bernardo do?  His marvelous history, a blend of Moorish and Christian romance, flamed in all those credulous imaginations.  He was a saint native to that region—­the second son of the Moorish king of Carlet.  Through his talent, courtesy and beauty he won such success at court in Valencia, that he rose to the post of prime minister.

Once when his sovereign had to have some dealings with the king of Aragon, he sent San Bernardo, who at that time was called Prince Hamete, to Barcelona.  During his journey he drew up one night at the portal of the monastery of Poblet.  The chants of the Cistercians, drifting mystical and vague through the Gothic arches, moved the Saracen youth to the bottom of his soul.  He felt drawn to the religion of his enemies by the magic of its poetry.  He received baptism, assumed the white habit of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, and later returned to the kingdom of Valencia to preach Christianity.  There he enjoyed the tolerance Saracen monarchs always had for new religious doctrines.  He converted his two sisters—­beautiful Mooresses they were—­and they took the names of Gracia and Maria, and aflame in turn with pious fervor, they chose to go with their brother on his tour of preachment.

But the old king of Carlet had died, and his first-born—­the arrogant Almanzor, a brutal, vainglorious Moor—­succeeded to the rulership of the tiny state—­a sort of military satrapy.  This haughty potentate, offended in his magnificence to see members of his family traveling over the roads dressed like vagabonds and preaching a religion of beggars, called a troop of horse and set out in pursuit of his brother and sisters.  He came upon them near Alcira, hiding on the riverbank.  With one slash of his sword he cut the heads off both his sisters; San Bernardo he crucified and drove a big nail through his forehead.  Thus the sacred preacher perished, but all the humble continued to adore him; for here was a handsome prince, who had turned to a poor man, become a wandering mendicant even—­a sacrifice that endeared him to the poorest of his votaries.  Of all this that crowd of peasants was thinking as it shouted vivas to San Bernardo, now, surely, prime minister of God, as he had been of the pagan king of Valencia.