At midnight, the king and queen retired to their chamber. The ball was
at an end, and the inquisitive folk outside, who, forming groups and
circles in the vicinity of the palace, had been impatiently awaiting
this moment, ran to station themselves beside the steep road, up in the
balconies along the route, and in the central square of the city, known
as the Zocodover.
For an hour or two there reigned, at these points and in the adjacent
streets, clamor, bustle, activity indescribable. Everywhere might be
seen squires caracoling on their richly caparisoned steeds,
masters-at-arms with showy vestments full of shields and heraldic
devices, drummers dressed in gay colors, soldiers in shining armor,
pages in velvet cloaks and plumed hats, footmen who preceded luxurious
chairs and litters covered with rich cloth. The great, blazing torches
borne by the footmen cast a rosy glow upon the multitude, who, with
wondering faces, open mouths and frightened eyes, saw with amazement all
the chief nobility of Castile passing by, surrounded on that occasion by
fabulous splendor and pomp.
Then, by degrees, the noise and excitement subsided, the stained glass
in the lofty ogive windows of the palace ceased to shine, the last
cavalcade passed through the close-packed throngs, the rabble in their
turn began to disperse in all directions, disappearing among the shadows
of the puzzling labyrinth formed by those dark, narrow, tortuous
streets, and now the deep silence of the night was broken only by the
far-off call of some sentinel, the footsteps of some lingerer whose
curiosity had left him to the last, the clang of bolts and bars in
closing gates, when on the summit of the stone stairway which leads to
the platform of the palace, there appeared a knight, who, after looking
on all sides as if seeking some one who should have been expecting him,
slowly descended to the Cuesta del Alcazar, by which he took his way
toward the Zocodover.
On arriving at the square, he halted a moment and cast a searching
glance around. The night was dark, not a star glistened in the sky, nor
in all the square could a single light be seen; yet afar off, and in the
same direction in which he began to perceive a slight sound as of
approaching footsteps, he believed he saw the figure of a man, without
doubt the same whom he had seemed to await with such impatience.
The knight who had just quitted the castle for the Zocodover was Alonso
Carrillo, who, on account of the post of honor which he held near the
person of the king, had been kept on attendance in the royal chamber
until that hour. The man coming to meet him out of the shadows of the
arcades which surround the square was Lope de Sandoval. When the two
knights were face to face, they exchanged a few sentences in suppressed
voices.
“I thought you would be expecting me,” said the one.
“I hoped that you would surmise as much,” answered the other.
“Where shall we go?”
“Wherever there can be found four handsbreadth of ground to turn around
in and a ray to give us light.”
This briefest of dialogues ended, the two young men plunged into one of
the narrow streets leading out from the Zocodover and vanished in the
darkness like those phantoms of the night, which, after terrifying for
an instant the beholder, dissolve into atoms of mist and are lost in the
depth of the shadows.
A long time they went on, traversing the streets of Toledo, seeking a
suitable place to end their quarrel, but the darkness of the night was
so dense that the duel seemed impossible. Yet both wished to fight and
to fight before the whitening of the east; for at dawn the royal hosts
were to go forth, and Alonso with them.
So they pressed on, threading at random deserted squares, dusky alleys,
long and gloomy passages, till at last they saw shining in the distance
a light, a light small and waning, about which the mist formed a circle
of ghostly, glimmering lustre.
They had reached the Street of the Christ, and the radiance discernible
at one end seemed to come from the small lantern which illuminated then
and illuminates still the image that gives the street its name.
On seeing it, both let escape an exclamation of joy and, quickening
their steps toward it, were not long in finding themselves near the
shrine in which it burned.
An arched recess in the wall, in the depths of which might be seen the
image of the Redeemer, nailed to the cross, with a skull at his feet, a
rude board covering for protection from the weather, and a small lantern
hung by a cord, swaying with the wind and shedding a faint effulgence,
constituted the entire shrine. About it clung festoons of ivy which had
sprung up among the dark and broken stones forming, as it were, a
curtain of verdure.
The cavaliers, after reverently saluting the image of Christ by removing
their military caps and murmuring a short prayer, glanced over the
ground, threw off their mantles and, each perceiving the other to be
ready for the combat and both giving the signal by a slight motion of
the head, crossed swords. But scarcely had the blades touched when,
before either of the combatants had been able to take a single step or
strike a blow, the light suddenly went out, leaving the street plunged
in utter darkness. As if moved by the same thought, the two antagonists,
on finding themselves surrounded by that instantaneous gloom, took a
step backward, lowered the points of their swords to the ground and
raised their eyes to the lantern, whose light, a moment before
extinguished, began to shine anew at the very instant the duel was
suspended.
“It must have been some passing gust that lowered the flame,” exclaimed
Carrillo, placing himself again on guard, and giving warning to Lope,
who seemed preoccupied.
Lope took a step forward to recover the lost ground, extended his arm
and the blades touched once more, but at their touching the light again
went out of itself, remaining thus until the swords separated.
“In truth, but this is strange!” murmured Lope, gazing at the lantern
which had begun spontaneously to burn again. The gleam, slowly wavering
with the wind, spread a tremulous, wonderful radiance over the yellow
skull placed at the feet of Christ.
“Bah!” said Alonso, “it must be because the holy woman who has charge of
the lamp cheats the devotees and scants the oil, so that the light,
almost out, brightens and then darkens again in its dying agony.”
Thus speaking, the impetuous youth placed himself once more in attitude
of defence. His opponent did the same; but this time, not only were they
enveloped in a thick and impenetrable gloom, but simultaneously there
fell upon their ears the deep echo of a mysterious voice like those long
sighs of the south-west wind which seems to complain and articulate
words as it wanders imprisoned in the crooked, narrow and dim streets of
Toledo.
What was uttered by that fearful and superhuman voice never could be
learned; but on hearing it, both youths were seized with such profound
terror that their swords dropped from their hands, their hair stood on
end, and over their bodies, shaken by an involuntary tremor, and down
their pallid and distorted brows a cold sweat like that of death began
to flow.
The light, for the third time quenched, for the third time shone again
and dispelled the dark.
“Ah!” exclaimed Lope, beholding him who was now his opponent, in other
days his best friend, astounded like himself, like himself pale and
motionless, “God does not mean to permit this combat, for it is a
fratricidal contest; because a duel between us is an offence to heaven
in whose sight we have sworn a hundred times eternal friendship.” And
saying this he threw himself into the arms of Alonso, who clasped him in
his own with unspeakable strength and fervor.