These arrangements made, Gerald and Geoffrey returned to Seville,
and reached that city on the eve of the commencement of the festa,
and took up their abode at the lodging they had hired. On the
following morning they posted themselves in the street by which
the party they expected would arrive. Both were attired in quiet
citizen dress, and Gerald retained his formidable moustachios and
bushy eyebrows.
In two or three hours a coach accompanied by four lackeys on horseback
came up the street, and they saw that it contained the Marquis of
Ribaldo, his daughter, and her duenna. They followed a short distance
behind it until it entered the courtyard of a stately mansion,
which they learnt on inquiry from a passerby belonged to the Duke
of Sottomayor. The streets were already crowded with people in holiday
attire, the church bells were ringing, and flags and decorations
of all kinds waved along the route that was to be followed by the
great procession. The house did not stand on this line, and it
was necessary therefore for its inmates to pass through the crowd
either to the cathedral or to the balcony of the house from which
they might intend to view the procession pass.
Half an hour after the arrival of the coach, the marquis and his
daughter, accompanied by Don Philip de Sottomayor, sallied out,
escorted by six armed lackeys, and took their way towards the
cathedral.
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