After this came the service of his baptism, which, because Ramiro wished it, for a certain secret reason, was carried out with as much formal publicity as the circumstances would allow.  Indeed, several priests officiated at the rite, Adrian’s sponsors being his father and the estimable Hague Simon, who was paid a gold piece for his pains.  While the sacrament was still in progress, an untoward incident occurred.  From its commencement the trampling and voices of a mob had been heard in the open space in front of the church, and now they began to hammer on the great doors and to cast stones at the painted windows, breaking the beautiful and ancient glass.  Presently a beadle hurried into the baptistery, and whispered something in the ear of the Abbe which caused that ecclesiastic to turn pale and to conclude the service in a somewhat hasty fashion.

“What is it?” asked Ramiro.

“Alas! my son,” said the priest, “these heretic dogs saw you, or our new-found brother, I know not which—­enter this holy place, and a great mob of them have surrounded it, ravening for our blood.”

“Then we had best begone,” said Ramiro.

“Senor, it is impossible,” broke in the sacristan; “they watch every door.  Hark! hark! hark!” and as he spoke there came the sound of battering on the oaken portals.

“Can your reverences make any suggestions?” asked Ramiro, “for if not—­” and he shrugged his shoulders.

“Let us pray,” said one of them in a trembling voice.

“By all means, but I should prefer to do so as I go.  Fool, is there any hiding place in this church, or must we stop here to have our throats cut?”

Then the sacristan, with white lips and knocking knees, whispered: 

“Follow me, all of you.  Stay, blow out the lights.”

So the candles were extinguished, and in the darkness they grasped each other’s hands and were led by the verger whither they knew not.  Across the wide spaces of the empty church they crawled, its echoing silence contrasting strangely with the muffled roar of angry voices without and the dull sound of battering on the doors.  One of their number, the fat Abbe Dominic, became separated from them in the gloom, and wandered away down an arm of the vast transept, whence they could hear him calling to them.  The sacristan called back, but Ramiro fiercely bade him to be silent, adding: 

“Are we all to be snared for the sake of one priest?”

So they went on, till presently in that great place his shouts grew fainter, and were lost in the roar of the multitude without.

“Here is the spot,” muttered the sacristan, after feeling the floor with his hands, and by a dim ray of moonlight which just then pierced the windows of the choir, Adrian saw that there was a hole in the pavement before him.

“Descend, there are steps,” said their guide.  “I will shut the stone,” and one by one they passed down six or seven narrow steps into some darksome place.