“Bah!” said the bell-ringer.  “They will come and join us when we are in safety far away.  Money can do everything—­the thing is to get it.”

“And your children?  Shall they be told their fathers were thieves!”

“Bah! they will be rich in other countries.  Their history will not be worse than that of other rich men’s sons.”

Gabriel understood the fierce determination that animated those men.  His endeavours to restrain them were useless.  Mariano seized him, seeing he was trying to push between them and the altar.

“Stand aside, little one,” he said.  “You are no use for anything.  Let us alone.  Are you afraid of the Virgin?  Undeceive yourself, even if we carry off all she has, she will work no miracle.”

Gabriel attempted one final effort.

“You shall do nothing.  If you pass the railings, if you approach the high altar, I will ring the call bell, and before ten minutes all Toledo will be at the gates.”

And opening the iron gate of the choir, he entered with a decision that surprised the bell-ringer.

The shoemaker in tipsy silence was the only one who followed him.

“My children’s bread!” he murmured in thickened speech.  “They wish to rob them!  They wish to keep them poor!”

Mariano heard a metallic clatter, and saw the shoemaker raise his hand armed with the bunch of keys which had fallen on the marble steps of the railing, then he heard a strangely sonorous sound, as if something hollow was being struck.

Gabriel gave one scream, and fell forwards on the ground; the shoemaker continued striking his head.

“Do not give him any more—­stop!”

These were the last words Gabriel heard confusedly, as he lay stretched at the entrance of the choir; a warm and sticky liquid ran over his eyes; afterwards—­silence, darkness and—­nothing!

His last thought was to tell himself he was dying—­that probably he was already dead, and that only the last vital struggle remained to him, the last struggle of a life vanishing for ever.

Still he came back to life.  He opened his eyes with difficulty and saw the sun coming through a barred window, white walls, and a dirty and darned cotton counterpane.  After great wandering and stumbling, he could collect his thoughts sufficiently to’ form one idea:  they had placed the Cathedral on his temples—­the huge church was hanging over his head crushing him.  What terrible pain!  He could not move; he seemed fastened by his head.  His ears were buzzing, his tongue seemed paralysed.  His eyes could see feebly, as though the light were muddy and a reddish haze enveloped all things.

He thought that a face with whiskers, surmounted by the hat of a civil guard, bent over him, looking into his eyes.  He moved his lips, but no one heard a sound.  No doubt it was the nightmare of his old persecutions returning again.

They looked at him, seeing that he opened his eyes.  A gentleman dressed in black advanced towards his bed, followed by others who carried papers under their arms.  He guessed they were speaking to him by the movement of their lips, but he could hear nothing.  Was he in another world?  Were all his beliefs false, and after death did another life exist the same as the one he had left?