If the man prayed, there was only his reverent attitude to indicate it, for no words escaped his lips. But the frequent straining of his tense body, and the fierce clenching of his thin hands, as he threw his arms out over the unopened bed, were abundant evidence of a soul tugging violently at its moorings. His was the attitude of one who has ceased to inveigh against fate, who kneels dumbly before the cup of Destiny, knowing that it must be drained. With the break of day the bells awoke in the church towers throughout the old city, and began to peal forth their noisy reminder of the virility of the Holy Catholic faith. Then the man raised his head, seemingly startled into awareness of his material environment. For a few moments he listened confusedly to the insistent clatter--but he made no sign of the cross, nor did his head bend with the weight of a hollow _Ave_ on his bloodless lips while the clamoring muezzins filled the warm, tropical air with their jangling appeal. Rising with an air of weary indifference, he slowly crossed the room and threw wide the shutters of the solitary window, admitting a torrent of sunlight. As he did this, the door of the cell softly opened, and a young novitiate entered. "With your permission, Padre," said the boy, bowing low. "His Grace summons you to the Cathedral." The man made a languid gesture of dismissal, and turned from the lad to the rare view which greeted him through the open window. The dusty road below was beginning to manifest the city's awakening. Barefooted, brown-skinned women, scantily clad in cheap calico gowns, were swinging along with shallow baskets under their arms to the _plaza_ for the day's marketing. Some carried naked babes astride their hips; some smoked long, slender cigars of their own rolling. Half-clad children of all ages, mixtures of _mestizo_, Spaniard, and Jamaican negro, trotted along beside them; and at intervals a blustering _cochero_ rattled around the corner in a rickety, obsolete type of trap behind a brace of emaciated horses. The lively gossip of the passing groups preluded the noisy chaffering to follow their arrival at the market place. "_Caramba_, little pig!" shrilled a buxom matron, snatching her naked offspring away from a passing vehicle. "Think you I have money to waste on Masses for your naughty soul?" "_Na, señora_," bantered another, "it will cost less now than later to get him out of purgatory." "But, _comadre_, do you stop at the Cathedral to say a _Pater-noster_?" "To be sure, _amiga_, and an _Ave_, too. And let us return by way of the Hotel España, for, _quien sabe_? we may catch a glimpse of the famous _matador_." "Señor Varilla?" "Yes. He arrived from Barranquilla last night--so my Pedro tells me--and will fight in the arena this Sunday. I have saved fifty _pesos_ to see him. _Madre de Dios!_ but I would sell my soul to see him slay but a single bull. And do you go?" "God willing!"