which he could consider as
his own. Many thanks; the beast was accustomed to the sun of Africa and
feared a change of climate.

But the trade was not ungrateful, and to perpetuate the happy
recollection of the shaggy-maned friend whom they possessed on the other
shore of the sea, every time the guild banner floated in the Valencian
celebrations, there marched behind it an ancestor of Senor Vicente, to
the sound of drums, and he was covered with hide, with a mask that was
the living image of the worthy lion, bearing in his hands a Shrine of
wood, so small and poor that it caused one to doubt the genuine value of
Torreblanca's own Shrine.

Perverse and irreverent persons even dared to affirm, to the great
indignation of Senor Vicente, that the whole story was a lie. Sheer
envy! Ill will of the other trades, which couldn't point to such a
glorious history! There was the guild chapel as proof, and in it the
lantern from the prow of the vessel, which the conscienceless wretches
declared dated from many centuries after the supposed battle; and there
were the guild drums, and the glorious banner; and the moth-eaten hide
of the lion, in which all his predecessors had encased themselves, lay
now forgotten behind the altar, covered with cobwebs and dust, but it
was none the less as authentic and worthy of reverence as the stones of
el Miguelete.[1]

[Note 1: A belfry in Valencia.]

And above all there was his faith, ardent and incontrovertible, capable
of receiving as an affront to the family the slightest irreverence
toward the African lion, the illustrious friend of the guild.

The procession took place on an afternoon in June. The sons, the
daughters-in-law and the grandsons of Senor Vicente helped him to get
into the costume of the lion, perspiring most uncomfortably at the mere
touch of that red-stained wool. "Father, you're going to
roast."--"Grandpa, you'll melt inside of this costume."

The old man, however, deaf to the warnings of the family, shook his
moth-eaten mane with pride, thinking of his ancestors; then he tried on
the terrifying mask, a cardboard arrangement that imitated, with a faint
resemblance, the countenance of the wild beast.

What a triumphant afternoon! The streets crowded with spectators; the
balconies decorated with bunting, and upon them rows of variegated
bonnets shading fair faces from the sun; the ground covered with myrtle,
forming a green, odorous carpet whose perfume seemed to expand th