s of the Military Academy.

These sounds were painful to Gabriel; the world had faded from his
sight, and when he thought himself so very far from it, he could still
feel its presence only a little way beyond the roof of the temple.

CHAPTER II

Since the times of the second Cardinal de Bourbon Senior Esteban Luna
had been gardener of the Cathedral, by the right that seemed firmly
established in his family. Who was the first Luna that entered the
service of the Holy Metropolitan Church? As the gardener asked himself
this question he smiled complacently, raising his eyes to heaven, as
though he would inquire of the immensity of space. The Lunas were as
ancient as the foundations of the church; a great many generations
had been born in the abode in the upper cloister, and even before the
illustrious Cisneros built the Claverias the Lunas had lived in houses
adjacent, as though they could not exist out of the shadow of the
Primacy. To no one did the Cathedral belong with better right than
to them. Canons, beneficiaries, archbishops passed; they gained the
appointment, died, and others came in their places. It was a constant
procession of new faces, of masters who came from every corner of
Spain to take their seats in the choir, to die a few years afterwards,
leaving the vacancies to be filled again by other newcomers; but the
Lunas always remained at their post, as though the ancient family were
another column of the many that supported the temple. It might happen
that the archbishop who to-day was called Don Bernardo, might next
year be called Don Caspar, or again another Don Fernando. But what
seemed utterly impossible was that the Cathedral could exist without
Lunas in the garden, in the sacristy, or in the crossways of the
choir, accustomed as it had been for centuries to their services.

The gardener spoke with pride of his descent, of his noble and
unfortunate relative the constable Don Alvaro, buried like a king in
his chapel behind the high altar; of the Pope Benedict XIII., proud
and obstinate like all the rest of his family; of Don Pedro de Luna,
fifth of his name to occupy the archiepiscopal throne of Toledo, and
of other relatives not less distinguished.

"We are all from the same stem," he said with pride. "We all came
to the conquest of Toledo with the good King Alfonso VI. The only
difference has been, that some Lunas took a fancy to go and fight
the Moors, and they became lords, and conquered c