Page:Tales of Today.djvu/229

Rh was splendid; a brilliant sun was gilding the red walls of the old church and the shattered ruins, blackened by fire, of the Hôtel de Ville. The square was crowded with people; troops were drawn up in line, and near the church steps stood Garrido in full uniform, very pale, with his officers about him, while a few steps away, beautiful as a saint in the black veils of her holiday attire, was Pepa, with old Chegaray standing at her side.

"Araquil beheld all that at a glance: the assembled troops with their bayonets gleaming in the sunlight, the general, the beautiful girl, and through the open doors of the church, down there at the bottom of the scene, a chapelle ardente, the great chapel all streaming with light and gold.

"They conducted him before Garrido.

"Araquil cast a searching look upon Pepa, and she regarded him with a strange air from out her black eyes beneath their fringe of long lashes, and it seemed to Juan that the gilded mass-book that she held in her hand—the book upon which she had sworn to be his wife—was trembling in the clasp of her black-gloved fingers.

Bring hither the priest!' said the general. "The holy man appeared upon the steps of stone as if he had been awaiting the general's order—a white-robed priest, who stopped upon the threshold, motionless as a statue—the while the great bells in the campanile were pealing forth from their wide mouths, wide-gaping mouths like those of great siege-guns, their festal hosannah, the merry marriage hymn, the hymn of the happy!

Tiburcio Chegaray,' said the general, then,