Nevertheless, several minutes passed before the celebrant appeared. The multitude commenced to murmur impatiently; the knights exchanged words with each other in a low tone; and the archbishop sent one of his attendants to the sacristan to inquire why the ceremony did not begin.
“Maese Perez has fallen sick, very sick, and it will be impossible for him to come to the midnight mass.”
This was the word brought back by the attendant.
The news ran instantly through the crowd. The disturbance caused by it was so great that the chief judge rose to his feet, and the officers came into the church, to enforce silence.
Just then a man of unpleasant face, thin, bony, and cross-eyed too, pushed up to the place where the archbishop was sitting.
“Maese Perez is sick,” he said; “the ceremony cannot begin. If you see fit, I will play the organ in his absence. Maese Perez is not the best organist in the world, nor need this instrument be left unused after his death for lack of any one able to play it.”
Heard in the portico
The archbishop nodded his head in assent, although some of the faithful, who had already recognized in that strange person an envious rival of the organist of Santa Ines, were breaking out in cries of displeasure. Suddenly a surprising noise was heard in the portico.
“Maese Perez is here! Maese Perez is here!”
At this shout, coming from those jammed in by the door, every one looked around.
Maese Perez, pale and feeble, was in fact entering the church, brought in a chair which all were quarreling for the honor of carrying upon their shoulders.
The commands of the physicians, the tears of his daughter—nothing had been able to keep him in bed.
“No,” he had said; “this is the last one, I know it. I know it, and I do not want to die without visiting my organ again, this night above all, this Christmas Eve. Come, I desire it, I order it; come, to the church!”
His desire had been gratified. The people carried him in their arms to the organ-loft. The mass began.
Twelve struck on the cathedral clock.
The introit came, then the Gospel, then the offertory, and the mo-ment arrived when the priest, after consecrating the sacred wafer, took it in his hands and began to elevate it. A cloud of incense filled the church in bluish undulations. The little bells rang out in vibrating peals, and Maese Perez placed his aged fingers upon the organ keys.
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