Once, years before, he had been in Italy on a Catholic pilgrimage,
entrusted by his mother to the care of a priest from Valencia, who would
not think of returning to Spain without paying a visit to don Carlos. A
memory of a Venetian _calle_ now came back to Rafael's mind as he
traversed the streets of old Alcira--shadowy, cramped, sunk deep as
wells between rows of high houses. With all the economy of a city built
on an island, Alcira rears its edifices higher and higher as its
population grows, leaving just enough space free for the bare needs of
traffic.

The streets were deserted. The noisy, orchard workers who had welcomed
Rafael had gone back to the fields again. All the idlers had fled to the
cafes, and as the deputy walked smartly by in front of these, warm waves
of air came out upon him through the windows, with the clatter of poker
chips, the noise of billiard balls, and the uproar of heated argument.

Rafael reached the Suburban Bridge, one of the two means of egress from
the Old City. The Jucar was combing its muddy, reddish waters on the
piles of the ancient structure. A number of row-boats, made fast to the
houses on the shore, were tugging at their moorings. Rafael recognized
among them the fine craft that he had once used for lonely trips on the
river. It lay there quite forgotten, gradually shedding its coat of
white paint out in the weather.

Then he looked at the bridge itself; the Gothic-arched gate, a relic of
the old fortifications; the battlements of yellowish, chipped rock,
which looked as if all the rats of the river had come at night to nibble
at them; then two niches with a collection of mutilated, dust-laden
images--San Bernardo, patron Saint of Alcira, and his estimable sisters.
Dear old San Bernardo, _alias_ Prince Hamete, son of the Moorish king
of Carlet, converted to Christ by the mystic poesy of the Christian
cult,--and still wearing in his mangled forehead the nail of martyrdom!

As Rafael walked past the rude, disfigured statue he thought of all the
stories his mother, an uncompromising clerical and a woman of credulous
faith, had told him of the patron of Alcira, particularly the legend of
the enmity and struggle between San Vicente and San Bernardo, an
ingenuous fancy of popular superstition.

Saint Vincent, who was an eloquent preacher arrived at Alcira on one of
his tours, and stopped at a blacksmith's shop near the bridge to get his
donkey shod. When the work was done the ho