DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP
but my reason tells me that only a long sea voyage could bring me within sound of such a bell.”
“Not at all,” said Father Joseph briskly. “I found that remarkable bell here, in the basement of old San Miguel. They tell me it has been here a hundred years or more. There is no church tower in the place strong enough to hold it—it is very thick and must weigh close upon eight hundred pounds. But I had a scaffolding built in the churchyard, and with the help of oxen we raised it and got it swung on crossbeams. I taught a Mexican boy to ring it properly against your return.”
“But how could it have come here? It is Spanish, I suppose?”
“Yes, the inscription is in Spanish, to St. Joseph, and the date is 1356. It must have been brought up from Mexico City in an ox-cart. A heroic undertaking, certainly. Nobody knows where it was cast. But they do tell a story about it: that it was pledged to St. Joseph in the wars with the Moors, and that the people of some besieged city brought all their plate and silver and gold ornaments and threw them in with the baser metals. There is certainly a good deal of silver in the bell, nothing else would account for its tone."
Father Latour reflected. "“And the silver of the Spaniards was really Moorish, was it not? If not actually of Moorish make, copied from their design
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