Suddenly, on a day, both Don Rodrigo and the raven disappeared. Their going, in that strange and sudden way, made a great commotion; but there was a greater commotion when the Alcalde--being called to look into the matter--entered the house to search it and found a very horrible thing. In the room that had been Don Rodrigo's bedroom, lying dishonored upon the floor, broken and blood-spattered, was the most holy image; and all about it were lying raven feathers, and they also were spattered with blood. Therefore it was known that the raven-devil and Don Rodrigo had beaten the holy image and had drawn blood from it; and that the great devil, the master of both of them, in penalty for their dreadful act of sacrilege, had snatched them suddenly home to him to burn forever in hell. That was the very proper end of them. Never were they seen again either on sea or land.
Naturally, Señor, respectable people declined to live in a house where there had been such shocking doings. Even the people living in the adjoining houses, feeling the disgrace that was on the neighborhood, moved away from them. And so, slowly, as the years went on, all of those houses crumbled to pieces and fell into ruins which were carted away--and that is why they no longer are there. But it is generally known, Señor, that until Don Rodrigo's house did in that way go out of existence, Don Rodrigo continued to inhabit it; and that the raven continued to bear him company.
Just a year from the time that the devil had snatched away to hell the two of them--and it was at midnight, and a storm was upon the City--the neighbors heard between the thunder-claps the clock on the Palace striking its twelve strokes; and then, between the next thunder-claps, they heard the raven caw twelve times. Then it became known that the raven nightly took up its post on the parapet of the bridge that was in that street; and that, when his cawing for midnight was ended, he habitually flew up into the balcony of Don Rodrigo's house; and that on the balcony he found Don Rodrigo--a yellow skeleton, and over the bones of it the dirty old capellar--ready and waiting for him. Don Rodrigo's skeleton would be sitting quite at its ease on the balcony; on the railing of the balcony would be perched the raven; and with his dry-bone fingers--making a little clicking sound, like that of castanets--Don Rodrigo would stroke gently the back of that intensely wicked bird. All this would show for a moment while the lightning was flashing; then darkness would come, and a crash of thunder; and after the thunder, in the black silence, the little clicking sound of Don Rodrigo's dry-bone fingers stroking the raven's back gently again would be heard.