The Argosy — page 38: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

26 Gustavo Becquer. had crossed the threshold and was once more confronting the storm. The wind soughed, making every hinge creak as if some iron hand were fain to wrench off the doors, the rain fell in torrents, beating against the window panes, whilst from time to time vivid flashes of lightning broke the pitchy darkness of the night. ‘The fellow is stark mad,” said one out of the group by the fire. ‘True enough, mad he is,” said another. Then, throwing on fresh logs, each wrapped himself in his sheepskin and composed himself to sleep. Meantime the pilgrim, guided only by the trickling of the stream, had reached, after two hours’ plodding through storm and rain, the precincts of the ruined church. ‘The weather was now somewhat calmer, the rain fell at intervals only, the wind no longer blew a hurricane, but made a gentle moan. Nothing in the visible world prognosticated the supernatural. ‘‘What if I have been befooled ?” he asked himself, as he paused. close to the broken walls. Hardly, however, had the thought taken shape within his mind than he heard noises wholly inexplicable in such a solitude. The ruined church was a mere shell, yet the striking of a clock now reached his ears, and immediately afterwards a bell pealed forth the hours—one, two, up tothe eleventh. All at once a brilliant light was seen flashing throughout the jagged masonry; arch, column, canopy became on a sudden dis- tinctly outlined against the heavens, a blue, weird, phosphorescent light playing about the ruins. And suddenly another and more marvellous transformation took place. He beheld a ruin no longer! Aisle and nave, transept and chapel, roof and altar were intact as if just emerged from the hands of the builder. The church was rebuilt by magic. Then the trembling pilgrim was aware of a low, confused murmur issuing, as it seemed, from the very bowels of the earth, at first hardly distinguishable from the wind, gradually gaining in volume, till human voices could be heard, each becoming more and more plain. Awe and curiosity now overcame the musician’s bodily fear. Quitting his resting-place a little way off the ruins, he approached step by step, reaching at last the spot whence the voices issued. Peering into the darkness, he saw a sight that made his hair stand on end and his limbs quake with new impulses of terror. With garments hanging loosely about their skeleton forms, the ghosts of the murdered monks one by one slowly emerged from the dark recesses of the rock on which the church stood, each chanting ina low, sepulchral voice, ‘‘ Miserere mei, Domine, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.” Having reached the church door, they filed in double line along the central aisle, ranging themselves on both sides of the choir, and COMIC OOOKS.CO