id the engineer, who was impatient
to reach Castello. "The Almighty is not to blame because the parish has
been transferred from one church to another. However, we will push on,
and let the Almighty arrange things as He thinks best."

Whereupon he started forwarded so briskly that presently Signor Giacomo
was obliged to stop again, puffing like a pair of bellows.

"Pardon me," said he, "if I yield, in a measure, to that curiosity which
is inborn in man. Might one inquire your worshipful age?"

The engineer understood the hidden meaning of his question, and
answered in a low tone, with triumphant and ironical meekness--

"I am older than you!"

And he started off again at the same cruel pace.

"I was born in '88, you know," Puttini groaned.

"And I, in '85!" Ribera flung over his shoulder, without stopping. "Now
come along."

Fortunately for Puttini they had only a few steps more to go. There was
the great wall that supported the consecrated ground about the church of
Castello, and there was the narrow stairway leading up to the entrance
of the village. Now they must turn into the dark passage below the
priest's house, feeling their way along like blind men through this
black hole, in which Signor Giacomo's imagination pictured so many
treacherous and slippery stones, so many accursed, deceitful steps, that
he stopped short, and, resting his clasped hands on the knob of his
stick, spoke as follows--

"By the body of the rogue Bacchus! No, most worshipful engineer, no, no,
no! Really I cannot. I shall remain here. They will surely come to
church. The church is near by. I shall wait here. Body of the rogue
Bacchus!"

This last "Body!" Signor Giacomo ground privately between his teeth,
like the close of an inward soliloquy concerning the accessories
surrounding the exceeding discomfort he was undergoing.

"Wait a minute," said the engineer.

A thread of light appeared under the church door. The engineer entered
and presently came out again, accompanied by the sacristan, who had been
preparing the hassocks for the bride and groom. He now brought to
Puttini's rescue the long pole with a lighted taper at the end, which
was used to light the candles on the altars. Thus, standing in the
church door, he moved the taper along in front of Signor Giacomo's feet
as far as the pole would reach, while that gentleman, but ill-satisfied
with this religious illumination, groped his way forward, grumbling at
the darkness, th