THE CALLE DEL PUENTE DEL CUERVO
fingers—making a little clicking sound, like that of castanets—Don Rodrigo would stroke gently the back of that intensely wicked bird. All this would show for a moment while the lightning was flashing; then darkness would come, and a crash of thunder; and after the thunder, in the black silence, the little clicking sound of Don Rodrigo's dry-bone fingers stroking the raven's back gently again would be heard.
And so it all went on, Señor, my grandfather told me, until the house tumbled down with age, and these disagreeable horrors no longer were possible; and it is most reasonably evident—since the street got its name because of them—that they really must have happened, and that they must have continued for a very long time.
As I have mentioned, Señor, my friend the cargador—who is a most respectable and truthful person—declares that sometimes on stormy nights he himself has heard the raven's cawings when the Palace clock has finished its twelve strokes; and from that it would appear that the raven is to be met with in the Puente del Cuervo even now.
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