New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1888-11-21

/ the wind that whistled through
the timbers of the scahol ding
at the bridge "A dense and
sonbre pail of cloud over
| hung the city, and from its gloomy
bosom darted, now and then, light.
ming rays of terrible brilliance thai
blinded the beholder. AS yet no rain
was falling; and the terror of the i'm
| pending storm seemed concentrated
in the thick palpable darkness, the
ominous brooding silence, and the
sultry, breathless thickness of the
close atmosphere.
Closing the window theWife of the
architect caught up an unextin-
guished brand that smoldered still
on the hearthstone. Out into the
night she went, and, for all the pitchy
| blackness that marked that last
black hour before the day should
| quicken she sought not to guide her.
steps by the light of the fire brand,
j but rather to conceal its CLEAN with
the folds of her rniment, as she hur-
ried over the broken and Uttered way
to the river, and with pain and
peril climbed upon the planks of
the staging, Below her the
wind shrieked among the timbers,
and the river roared and beloved as
it hurled itself upon the opposition
of the piles, and Catalan shuddered.
| Was it for the solitude and the dark
ness? for the danger of losing her
footing and tumbling headlong? or.
| because she realized that those about
her, overlooking the sacrifice of af-
fiction, would see in her movements
only the odious deed of a criminal?
| She recovered her calmness with
an effort, shook until it burst into a
blaze in the blast the torch that I'M
til now she had hidden, and applied
| it to the lighter braces of the staging.
| The resinous wood caught with a
vigorous flame, and, famed by the
wind, leaped abroad, and climbed
with terrible rapidity up the scaffold-
ing.
Not less swiftly, by the light of the
spreading fire, Catalina recrossed the
dangerous path shehad trodden, and
reached her home and her chamber
| while her husband was still sleeping.
By this time the massive sleepers OF
the bridge of San Martin were crack
ing. A little latter dull and pro-
longed murmur was heard through
out the city, and from hundred bel
fries tolled the ominous fre-alarm,
to which lugubrious signal ensued a
crash that called from the Toledanos
the same cry of distress that they
had uttered when the bridge succumb-
ed to the vandal attack of Don En-
rique the Bastard.
| Juan de Arevalo aWoke with a
species Of spasm. Catalina was at
his side, apparently sleeping. Juan
clothed himself hurriedly, and, as he
reached the street, his heart leaped
with Joy as he realized that the fire
! had obliterated the proof ofhis faulty
Judgment.
The archbishop and the Toledanos
attributed the fire to a bolt
from heaven, and the sorrow
they felt for their own loss
was tempered by the sympathy felt
for the architect, whom they deemed
to have seen the results Of his labor
destroyed even in the hour of triumph;
and the architect himself, who was a
pious soul, of a profound faith in the
protection Of heaven, was devout in
the same conviction.
| AS for Catalina she assured her
husband that she was entirely of the
same, opinion, and, as women are
rarely guilty of falsehood, surely so
venial a lie may be forgiven to one
who had saved the honor and the life
of her husband.
The confagration only retarded
fora year the triumph Of Juan de
Arevalo, for a twelvemonth later, to
a day, on the fete of San Yldefonso,
the Toledanos crossed the bridge OF
San Martin to their beloved Gigarra-
les, and the successful builder of the
structure was the boast of the occa-
sion, and the honored guest at the
banquet spread in joyous celebrar
tiOn