(A Legend of the Castanets)

The chorus had been sung, and now they were dancing to the steady, clicking rhythm of their castanets. It was a dignified dance, done by young boys wearing silken pages' costumes and wide, plumed hats.

Everybody felt the solemn beauty of the ceremony, and a hushed reverence had fallen over the cathedral. Two old people, a woman with a black shawl thrown over her head and an old man with a tanned, leathery face, sat silently weeping.

Fernando, their son, moved among those graceful figures beneath the altar. He was a part of the royal Dance of the Six, called the Sevillana.

How proud were these old people of their son Fernando! How happy to know that, each year, he would take his place in this age-old ceremony of their forefathers, in the dance which had been performed for centuries in Seville's cathedral!

For in the far distant past, the Pope, hearing about the Sevillana, wished to see for himself what sort of dance it was. In those days, it would have been considered shocking for girls to dance before the Pope. So six boys were taught the steps of the Sevillana and taken to the Vatican in Rome.

Here they danced, dressed in their beautiful silken costumes. The Pope was so well pleased that he granted permission to use this dance during certain ceremonies at the cathedral. But the privilege was to last only so long as the boys' costumes lasted.

Today these costumes are still in use. But what a deal of patching and mending must have taken place during those hundreds of years!

When the dance was over, Fernando went into his room and pulled off his quaint, plumed hat. The reverent little dancer had changed to a furious, red-faced youth. He threw the hat down on the floor in a fit of anger.

"Never!" he cried. "Never will I dance it again!"

His sister Maria stood trembling at the door.

"Do not say that, Fernando," she begged. "Think of our parents. You would break their hearts were you never to dance in the cathedral again. These past three days have been for them the happiest of their lives."

"I shall never dance again," repeated Fernando firmly. "It is girls' work, and I am a boy. I shall run away and work with men—and be a man!"

Fernando picked up his castanets, which had fallen to the floor.

"Miguel will take my place in the chorus," he said. "I shall have no more use for these castanets, and so I shall give them—"

"No! No!" cried Fernando's sister. She ran over to him and caught him by the arm. "You must never give away those castanets. Surely you have heard about their magic power and the legends attached to them. Ill luck to him who loses or gives away—"

"Nonsense!" scoffed Fernando. "I do not believe such tales. They are old women's twaddle!"

"Perhaps," agreed his sister. "Yet remember what our grandmother once told us. She said that the castanets have always been a power for good. And whenever we do things which we should not do, they bring misfortune to us and to our family."

Then she recited:

"Yes, I know," said Fernando shortly. "But," and he grinned, "I shall change that verse to:

One night many years later, this same Fernando, now a man, glided along in a boat on a river near the border of France. With him were several other men, and all of them were smugglers.

Fernando had long lived in the Pyrenees (pir´e?-nez) Mountains. He had joined a band of people who secretly smuggled forbidden goods from Spain to France in the dead of night. They led a dangerous life and were always in fear of the customs men.

As their boat now moved gently along the water, Fernando's companions slept. All night they had labored, and they were weary. But Fernando could not sleep. Somehow his thoughts kept taking him to Seville, to his parents and his sister Maria. What had become of them?

In all these years he had heard no word from them, and until now, he had barely given them a thought. But tonight—How strange that they should creep into his mind!

A shot rang out hideously. The customs men were after them! Another shot! And another and another! One by one, the smugglers in the little boat crumpled where they sat. Then the small craft itself began to sink—down, down.

All was silent upon the surface of the water. All was silent for a long time, and then Fernando, holding to a floating board, slowly raised his head.

The morning had begun to dawn over the Spanish Pyrenees. A hoarse church bell rang out. Fernando looked about him. The customs men had gone back to France. The smugglers, too, had gone, but not to France; to the bottom of the river.

Fernando swam to shore, and the next day he set off for Seville. He had one aim: to find his family and to try to make up for the heartache he had caused them.

But Fernando was never to see his parents again. Long since the old people had died, and only his sister Maria remained. He found her living in a poor and squalid alley. Yet when he walked into her shabby room, she did not seem in the least surprised to see him.

"I knew that you would come back, Fernando," she said quietly. "I expected you."

Puzzled, he started to speak, but she silenced him.

Then thrusting her hand inside her blouse, she drew out the magic castanets, saying, "They were brought back to me, Fernando!"

Fernando stood fixed to the spot, his eyes upon the old clappers, which he had given away so many years ago in a fit of boyish rage. Then a sudden curious idea occurred to him.

"When were they returned to you?" he asked Maria.

She told him, and he knew then that it had been upon the very same night when his life had been spared, out there upon those dangerous waters—the very same night when he had been thinking so earnestly of his family.

His sister listened while he told her of his many adventures as a smuggler. He promised to give it all up, to help her, and to become an honest man.

"For," he ended, laughing, "there is an old Basque saying, 'If a smuggler is an honest man, then legends are the truth.'"

"But surely, Fernando," said his sister, "you must believe in the legends of the castanets after what has happened to us."

Fernando shook his head.

"I believe only in the power for good," he replied.

Some years later, Fernando had a little son of his own who danced in the cathedral of Seville. And do you see those two old people who sit there watching, solemn-eyed and happy?

They are Fernando and his wife, and they are very proud that their boy is taking his place in this age-old ceremony of their forefathers.

CHAPTER XII