It was now completely dark; we were passing through the barranco, where stood the cross of the murdered muleteer, when I beheld a number of lights moving at a distance, and apparently advancing up the ravine. On nearer approach they proved to be torches borne by a train of uncouth figures arrayed in black: it would have been a procession dreary enough at any time, but was peculiarly so in this wild and solitary place. Mateo drew near, and told me, in a low voice, that it was a funeral train bearing a corpse to the burying-ground among the hills. As the procession passed by, the lugubrious light of the torches, falling on the rugged features and funeral-weeds of the attendants, had the most fantastic effect, but was perfectly ghastly, as it revealed the countenance of the corpse, which, according to the Spanish custom, was borne uncovered on an open bier. I remained for some time gazing after the dreary train as it wound up the dark defile of the mountain. It put me in mind of the old story of a procession of demons bearing the body of a sinner up the crater of Stromboli. “Ah! Señor,” cried Mateo, “I could tell you a story of a procession once seen among these mountains, but then you’d laugh at me, and say it was one of the legacies of my grandfather the tailor.” “By no means, Mateo. There is nothing I relish more than a marvellous tale.” “Well, Señor, it is about one of those very men we have been talking of, who gather snow on the Sierra Nevada. “You must know, that a great many years since, in my grandfather’s time, there was an old fellow, Tio Nicolo [Uncle Nicholas] by name, who had filled the panniers of his mule with snow and ice, and was returning down the mountain. Being very drowsy, he mounted upon the mule, and soon falling asleep, went with his head nodding and bobbing about from side to side, while his sure-footed old mule stepped along the edge of precipices, and down steep and broken barrancos, just as safe and steady as if it had been on plain ground. At length Tio Nicolo awoke, and gazed about him, and rubbed his eyes--and, in good truth, he had reason. The moon shone almost as bright as day, and he saw the city below him, as plain as your hand, and shining with its white buildings, like a silver platter, in the moonshine; but, Lord! Señor, it was nothing like the city he had left a few hours before! Instead of the cathedral, with its great dome and turrets, and the churches with their spires, and the convents with their pinnacles, all surmounted with the blessed cross, he saw nothing but Moorish mosques, and minarets, and cupolas, all topped off with glittering crescents, such as you see on the Barbary flags. Well, Señor, as you may suppose, Tio Nicolo was mightily puzzled at all this, but while he was gazing down upon the city, a great army came marching up the mountains, winding along the ravines, sometimes in the moonshine, sometimes in the shade. As it drew nigh, he saw that there