ch Don Juan lay. The blasphemer's body sparkled with
gems, and flowers, and crystal, with diamonds and gold, and plumes white
as the wings of seraphim; they had set it up on the altar, where the
pictures of Christ had stood. All about him blazed a host of tall
candles; the air quivered in the radiant light. The worthy Abbot of
San-Lucar, in pontifical robes, with his mitre set with precious stones,
his rochet and golden crosier, sat enthroned in imperial state among his
clergy in the choir. Rows of impassive aged faces, silver-haired old
men clad in fine linen albs, were grouped about him, as the saints who
confessed Christ on earth are set by painters, each in his place, about
the throne of God in heaven. The precentor and the dignitaries of the
chapter, adorned with the gorgeous insignia of ecclesiastical vanity,
came and went through the clouds of incense, like stars upon their
courses in the firmament.

When the hour of triumph arrived, the bells awoke the echoes far and
wide, and the whole vast crowd raised to God the first cry of praise
that begins the _Te Deum_. A sublime cry! High, pure notes, the voices
of women in ecstasy, mingled in it with the sterner and deeper voices of
men; thousands of voices sent up a volume of sound so mighty, that the
straining, groaning organ-pipes could not dominate that harmony. But
the shrill sound of children's singing among the choristers, the
reverberation of deep bass notes, awakened gracious associations,
visions of childhood, and of man in his strength, and rose above that
entrancing harmony of human voices blended in one sentiment of love.

_Te Deum laudamus_!

The chant went up from the black masses of men and women kneeling in
the cathedral, like a sudden breaking out of light in darkness, and the
silence was shattered as by a peal of thunder. The voices floated up
with the clouds of incense that had begun to cast thin bluish veils over
the fanciful marvels of the architecture, and the aisles were filled
with splendor and perfume and light and melody. Even at the moment when
that music of love and thanksgiving soared up to the altar, Don Juan,
too well bred not to express his acknowledgments, too witty not
to understand how to take a jest, bridled up in his reliquary, and
responded with an appalling burst of laughter. Then the Devil having put
him in mind of the risk he was running of being taken for an ordinary
man, a saint, a Boniface, a Pantaleone, he interrupted the