It is an octagonal apartment, with eight rows of niches, the kings on the right of the altar opposite the entrance, the queens on the left. Every sarcophagus, wrought in precisely the same elaborate pattern, is of black marble heavily encrusted with gold. The handful of dust that once was chief of the Holy Roman Empire is in the sarcophagus on a level with the top of the altar, and below him is Philip II. There is none of the picturesque confusion, the vagaries of different epochs, nor the lingering scent of death of the Kaisergruft in Vienna. It might have been built yesterday, but it has the sombre richness, the lofty dignity of Spain itself. There were only two empty niches, and the guide informed his patrons that they awaited the young king and the late Queen Isabella. “Where is she now?” asked Catalina. “Why is she not here?” “Oh, she must remain in the Pudridero for ten years,” said the guide, indifferently. “It is the custom. For some it is only five years, but she was very fat.” Thus was explained the purity of the atmosphere. They ascended thirty-four of the steps and wandered through that white marble quarry, so brilliant, so new, so cheerful, where lie the lesser dead of the House of Spain. There are rows and rows and rows of them. In one octagonal, snow-white mass, exactly resembling a huge wedding-cake, the dust of many children has been put away, and the gay coat of arms embellishing it seems cut there to cheer the little ones in their last sleep. Many of the glistening sarcophagi are as yet without inscription, awaiting, no doubt, time and the Pudridero. Above, in the Sacristia and Ante-Sacristia, they were shown the magnificent vestments and altar-cloths with which the uneasy Isabella, as age waxed and time waned, propitiated Church and saints. And what she had been was discreetly forgotten; she had descended into the Pudridero fortified with the odor of sanctity. They dismissed the guide and walked down the foot-path to the lower town. For a time they preserved the tranquil silence which is so pleasant an episode in friendship; for although this friendship was barely three weeks old, they had enjoyed so much in common, and companioned each other through so many annoyances, quarrelled and made up so often, discovered so many points of sympathy and disagreement, they had come to take their intimate association as a matter of course, while still their mutual interest deepened.