It was nearly daylight, and several women with bowed heads, their mantillas falling over their eyes, were passing in front of the iron grating.

The crutches of a lame man rang out on the fine tiles of the pavement, and, out beyond the tower, under the great arch of communication between the archbishop's palace and the Cathedral, the beggars were gathering in order to take up their accustomed positions at the cloister door.

The faithful and "God's creatures" [1] knew one another; every morning they were the first occupants of the church, and this daily meeting had established a kind of fraternity, and with much coughing and hoarseness they all lamented the cold of the morning and the lateness of the bell-ringer in coming down to open the doors.
[Footnote 1: _Pordioseres_.] A door opened beyond the archbishop's arch, that of the tower and the staircase leading to the dwellings in the upper cloister.

A man crossed the street rattling a huge bunch of keys, and, followed by the usual morning assemblage, he proceeded to open the door of the lower cloister, narrow and pointed as an arrow-head.

Gabriel recognised him, it was Mariano, the bell-ringer.