At ten o’clock a throbbing dirge begins. The first of the processions is under way. A band plays a funeral march, and is followed by acolytes swinging censers. Pious elderly citizens, perspiring in frock coats, carry tall, flaming candles that drop wax upon their clothes. A few priests, in black and purple, follow, bearing holy vessels. Behind these a row of men in mediæval armour and carrying halberds, surround a heavy, hand-borne bier hung with black velvet, on which rests a glass and gilt case containing an image of the Crucified—a life-sized image, brown with age. Presumably it has been taken from some ancient and 272revered Spanish crucifix, for it is crowned with thorns, is emaciated, is writhed with pain, painted with the dark, faded red of streaming wounds—one of those agonised figures conceived by the pious realism of the older Spanish sculptors. Immediately follows another hand-borne litter upon which is standing a tall Virgin clothed in black hood and mantle—a pallid, narrow-faced Virgin—also Spanish and realistic. The delicate clasped hands hold a lace handkerchief, her breast is hung with votive silver hearts. The features are distorted with grief, the lids, reddened with tears, are drooped over sunken, deep-shadowed eyes, and her countenance seamed and withered—a poignant figure of unutterable maternal woe! Burning candles alternate with mounds of roses about the edge of the platform on which she stands. As the dead Son and the mourning Mother pass, hats come off and heads are bowed, signs of the cross are made. A few of the older peasant women fall to their knees upon the sidewalk and mutter an Agnus Dei, a Hail Mary, with streaming tears. A priest walks last of all, rattling a contribution box at the end of a long stick, looking anxiously at the balconies and windows from which the well-to-do spectators lean. For his is but a poor church; the velvet palls and cloaks are cotton, and frayed and faded, the bier and platform old, and so massive that the stalwart bearers must set them down often to wipe away the sweat, which is why it takes advantage of the unpre-empted morning hours and is early in the field.