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Once, years before, he had been in Italy on a Catholic pilgrimage, entrusted by his mother to the care of a priest from Valencia, who would not think of returning to Spain without paying a visit to don Carlos. A memory of a Venetian calle now came back to Rafael's mind as he traversed the streets of old Alcira shadowy, cramped, sunk deep as wells between rows of high houses.
But the celestial lady had taken a liking to Alcira and its inhabitants. Over the water, and without even wetting her feet, she came gliding back. Then the Majorcans, to keep what had happened quiet, counterfeited a new statue that looked just like the first.
And it was worth sitting an afternoon even in that Chamber to hear the slighting tone of scorn with which the member from Alcira emphasized that word ideologue and that phrase about "theories dug out of books" and "living removed from reality!" "Good, fine.
These two serious misadventures caused Las Torres to despair of success against a town defended by so energetic and enterprising a commander as Peterborough, and he now turned his thoughts toward the small towns of Sueca and Alcira.
Then he looked at the bridge itself; the Gothic-arched gate, a relic of the old fortifications; the battlements of yellowish, chipped rock, which looked as if all the rats of the river had come at night to nibble at them; then two niches with a collection of mutilated, dust-laden images San Bernardo, patron Saint of Alcira, and his estimable sisters.
The Spanish garrison of Alcira, also about a thousand strong, had orders to sally out and attack the village at the same hour. The Spaniards also arrived punctually, but just as they were preparing to burst upon the unconscious enemy, who were four thousand strong, they happened to come upon a picket of twenty horse.
Moved by these dismal considerations, they capitulated and surrendered themselves prisoners of war, to the amount of thirteen battalions. The Portuguese, and part of the English horse, with the infantry that guarded the baggage, retreated to Alcira, where they were joined by the earl of Galway, with about five and twenty hundred dragoons which he had brought from the field of battle.
Floods had been coming since the days of their fathers, their grandfathers and their great-grandfathers, and never had the town been carried off. A few houses at the worst. Why suppose the catastrophe would be due now?... The Júcar was a sort of husband to Alcira. As happens in any decent family, there would be a quarrel now and then a thrashing followed by kisses and reconciliation.
The rescuers had arrived from Valencia with whale-boats of the Fleet, brought overland by rail to the scene of the flood. The provincial authorities would soon be arriving in Alcira; and the presence of Rafael was indispensable. Cupido himself, with sudden gravity, advised him to go and meet those boats.
But on the decisive Sunday he triumphed completely, and Rafael Brull, Deputy from Alcira, spent the night shaking hands, receiving congratulations, listening to serenades, waiting for morning to come that he might run to the Blue House and receive Leonora's ironic good wishes. "I'm very glad to hear it," the actress said. "Now you'll be leaving very soon and I'll lose sight of you.
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