ate
houses ladies in black mantillas, children in white, and foreigners in gay
colours looked down upon the scene.

So passed an hour, while the boxes and best seats began to fill. Spanish
families of the middle class, men and women in black, took front seats of
the tribune, where the empty royal box made a brave splash of gold and
crimson; but more slowly came members of the aristocracy and officers in
blue and gold; and, jostled by the crowd, I waited in suspense.

Colonel O'Donnel had gone to his club for news of the box which, by
strategic means, he had been trying to get. Pilar and Dick had gone with
him, to remain in the car chaperoned by Ropes, until he should come out;
so that I had no means of learning whether the Cherub had triumphed or
failed. All I knew was, that a club acquaintance whose wife was ill, might
be induced to offer his box, close to the royalties, to a second
acquaintance in exchange for one directly behind that which the Duke of
Carmona had taken. If this could be arranged, the O'Donnels would be given
the latter, in exchange for--only the Cherub knew what. Borne back and
forth with the moving throng, like a leaf in an eddy, my eyes seldom
strayed for long from the tribune. Would the Carmona household come? Would
the O'Donnels be their neighbours?

At last I saw Pilar and the two men entering the tribune. Yes, they had
succeeded, I could tell from the Cherub's description of the Duke's box.
But Carmona's was still empty.

The procession had not yet appeared, though the first _cofradia_ had been
due in the Plaza an hour ago, and twilight was falling over the vast
square, ethereally clear and pale. Only the figure of Faith on the soaring
Giralda, turned as if to watch the scene, still glittered in the sun; and
its dazzling brilliance had faded before a bugle note rang out, poignant
as a cry of bitter sorrow from a breaking heart.

This was the herald of a brotherhood with its sacred images; and the
police began to sweep the crowd before them out of the lane between the
chairs and tribune. Slowly the flock was forced along by the shepherd
dogs; and as the way cleared, forth from the dim tunnel of Las Sierpes
marched, with arms reversed, a squad of civil guards; then a company of
mounted soldiers, their bugles still wailing that sad warning of some
piteous spectacle to come.

The cavalry passed; it was but a modern preface to a mediaeval poem which,
following closely, brought with it into the