This was his last look, uncertain and clouded, as though seen by the light of a flying spark. Afterwards, eternal darkness and annihilation.
As his eyes were closing for ever, a voice close to him said:
"We have followed your scent, rascal; you were well hidden, but we have discovered you through one of your own. Now we shall see what account you can give of the Virgin's jewels, thief!"
But the terrible enemy of God and social order could give no account to man.
The following day he was carried out of the prison infirmary on men's shoulders to disappear in the common grave.
The earth kept the secret of his death, that frowning Mother who watches men's struggles impassively, knowing that all grandeur and ambitions, all miseries and follies must rot in her breast, with no other object than the fertilisation and renovation of life.
N.B.--The jewels were stolen from the sacristy of Toledo Cathedral in 1868.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shadow of the Cathedral by Vicente Blasco Ibañez