On the walls were represented in brilliant colours scenes from the conquest of Oran by the great Cisneros.

As Gabriel listened to the monotonous singing of the Muzarabe priests he remembered the quarrels during the time of Alfonso VI.

between the Roman liturgy and that of Toledo--the foreign worship and the national one.

The believers, to end the eternal disputes, appealed to the "Judgment of God." The king named the Roman champion, and the Toledans confided the defence of their Gothic rite to the sword of Juan Ruiz, a nobleman from the borders of Pisuerga.

The champion of the Gothic breviary remained triumphant in the fight, demonstrating its superiority with magnificent sword thrusts, but, in spite of the will of God having been manifested in this warlike way, the Roman rite by slow degrees became master of the situation, till at last the Muzarabe ritual was relegated to this small chapel as a curious relic of the past.
[Footnote 1: The Muzarabe ritual is still sung in Arabic both in Toledo and Salamanca.] Sometimes in the evenings, when the services were ended and the Cathedral was locked up, Gabriel would go up to the abode of the bell-ringer, stopping on the gallery above the door del Perdon.
Mariano, the bell-ringer's son, a youth of the same age as the seminarist, and attached to him by the respect and admiration his talents inspired, would act as guide in their excursions to the upper regions of the church; they would possess themselves of the key of the vaultings and explore that mysterious locality to which only a few workmen ascended from time to time.
The Cathedral was ugly and commonplace seen from above.