o lay buried without his head in the stone
sarcophagus, bordered with Gothic mouldings. Gabriel remembered what
he had heard his father relate about the recumbent statue of Don
Alvaro. In former times the statue had been of bronze, and when mass
was said in the chapel, at the elevation of the Host, the statue, by
means of secret springs, would rise and remain kneeling till the
end of the ceremony. Some said that the Catholic queen caused the
disappearance of this theatrical statue, believing that it disturbed
the prayers of the faithful; others said that some soldiers, enemies
of the constable, on a day of disturbance, had broken in pieces the
jointed statue. On the exterior of the church the chapel of the Lunas
raised its battlemented towers, forming an isolated fortress inside
the Cathedral.

In spite of his family considering this chapel as their own, the
seminarist felt himself more attracted by that of Saint Ildefonso
close by, which contained the tomb of the Cardinal Albornoz. Of all
the great past in the Cathedral, that which excited his greatest
admiration was the romantic figure of this warlike prelate; lover of
letters, Spanish by birth, and Italian by his conquests. He slept in a
splendid marble tomb, shining and polished by age, and of a soft
fawn colour; the invisible hand of time had treated the face of the
recumbent effigy rather roughly, flattening the nose, and giving the
warlike cardinal an expression of almost Mongolian ferocity. Four
lions guarded the remains of the prelate. Everything in him was
extraordinary and adventurous even to his death. His body was brought
back from Italy to Spain with prayers and hymns, carried on the
shoulders of the entire population, who went out to meet it in order
to gain the indulgences granted by the Pope. This return journey to
his own country after his death lasted several months, as the good
cardinal only went by short journeys from church to church, preceded
by a picture of Christ, which now adorns his chapel, and spreading
among the multitude the sweet scent of his embalming.

For Don Gil de Albornoz nothing seemed impossible; he was the sword of
the Apostle returned to earth in order to enforce faith. Flying from
Don Pedro the Cruel, he had taken refuge in Avignon, where lived
exiles even more illustrious than himself. There were the Popes driven
out of Rome by a people who, in their mediaeval nightmare, tried to
restore at the bidding of Rienzi the ancient r