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As the troopers moved about, the shadows began a fantastic dance among the corbels and the memorial tablets. For a little while all was silent, and then five troopers who were the body-guard of Sir Frederick Hamilton lifted their muskets, and shot down five of the friars.
Two remarkable, if not unique, features of the tower are the series of sculptured corbels which project between the floors on the inside, and the four projecting belts or zones of masonry which divide the tower into storeys externally.
The tower, added by Diogo Eannes in 1556, is quite plain with one belfry opening in each face close to the top and just below the low parapet which, resting on corbels, ends in a row of curious half-classic battlements. This plan was not confined only to parish churches, for about 1514 we find it used by Dom Manoel at Funchal for the cathedral of the newly founded diocese of Madeira.
No traces of three of the portcullises remain, if they ever existed, and the other never could reach the floor or interrupt the passage, so its use is enigmatical. There is some evidence that the pyramid was opened in the early days, perhaps before the middle kingdom. Two rows of beams which rest on the side wall as corbels or cantilevers, only touching at the top, without necessarily any thrust.
The whole is a very curious piece of work, the capitals and bases being, with the exception of some details at Thomar and at Batalha, the most strange of the details of that period, though, were the small corbels left out, they would differ but little from other Manoelino capitals, while the bases may be only an attempt of a Moorish workman to copy the interpenetration of late Gothic.
Again the vaulting of the apse in São João de Alporão is arranged very much in the way which was almost universal during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the chancels and side chapels of many a church, such as Santa Maria do Olival at Thomar, or the Graça at Santarem itself, and the curious boat-like corbels of São João are found more than once, as in the choir of the old church, formerly the cathedral of Silves, far south in the Algarve.
Two like them have the ogee moulding, and at the sides a rounded moulding carried on corbels and finished above the window with a carved finial. The capitals are again carved with leaves, but the horseshoe arches have no cusps, and the mouldings, like the capitals, are entirely Gothic; the union between the two styles, Gothic and Arab, was already becoming closer.
Like the nave arch, on their spandrels heads are carved looking out of circles. Lowest of all owing to the barrel vault which covers the central aisle at the crossing are the arches leading north and south to the chapels. They too spring from corbels and are quite plain.
Inside, the aisles are divided from the nave by round chamfered arches springing from rather short octagonal piers, which have picturesque octagonal capitals and a moulded band half-way up. Only is the easternmost bay, opening to large transeptal chapels, pointed and moulded. The vaulting springs from corbels, and although the ribs are but simply chamfered they are well developed.
Vandalism has all but done its worst; still, enough are left of proscenium and auditorium, originally constructed to hold 7,000 spectators, to admit of the performance of plays here. The stone corbels, pierced with holes to hold the enormous awning or velarium used in wet weather or extreme heat, remain intact.
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