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“In that case there is no more to be said. Senor Jaime Olot, let us come to an understanding, like two good friends,” exclaimed the Alcalde, at the same time pouring out a glass of brandy for the stranger.

“Let us come to an understanding!” repeated the stranger, taking a seat without waiting for further permission, and drinking his brandy with gusto.

“Tell me,” continued Uncle Hormiga, “and tell me without lying, so that I may learn to put faith in you–“

“Ask what you wish; when it does not suit me to speak I shall be silent.”

“Do you come from Madrid?”

“No. It is twenty-five years since I was in the capital, for the first and last time.”

“Do you come from the Holy Land?”

“No; that is not in my line.”

“Are you acquainted with a lawyer of Ugijar, called Don Matias de Quesada?”

“No; I hate lawyers and all people who live by the pen.”

“Well, then, how did this document fall into your possession?”

Jaime Olcot was silent.

“I like that! I see you don’t want to lie!” exclaimed the Alcalde. “But there cannot be a doubt that Don Matias de Quesada cheated me as if I were a Chinese, stealing from me two ounces in gold, and then selling that document to some one in Melilla or Ceuta. And the fact is, although you are not a Moor, you look as if you had lived in those countries.”

“Don’t fatigue yourself, or lose your time guessing further. I will set your doubts at rest. This lawyer you speak of must have sent the manuscript to a Spaniard in Ceuta, from whom it was stolen three weeks ago by the Moor from whose possession it passed into mine.”

“Ah! now I see. He must have sent it to a nephew of his who is a musician in the cathedral of that city–one Bonafacio de Tudela.”

“It is very likely.”

“What a wretch that Don Matias is! To cheat his gossip in this way! But see how chance has brought the document back to my hands again!”

“To mine, you would say,” observed the stranger.

“To ours!” returned the Alcalde, again filling the glasses. “Why, then, we are millionaires. We will divide the treasure equally between us, since you cannot dig in that ground without my permission, nor can I find the treasure without the help of the document which has fallen into your possession. That is to say, that chance has made us brothers. From this day forth you shall live in my house–another glass–and the instant we have finished breakfast, we will begin to dig.”

The conference had reached this point when Dame Torcuata returned from mass. Her husband told her all that had passed, and presented to her Don Jaime Olot. The good woman heard with as much fear as joy the news that the treasure was on the eve of discovery, crossing herself repeatedly on learning of the treachery and baseness of her gossip, Don Matias de Quesada, and she looked with terror at the stranger, whose countenance filled her with a presentiment of coming misfortune.

Knowing, however, that she must give this man his breakfast, she went into the pantry to take from it the choicest articles it contained–that is to say, a tenderloin with pickle sauce, and a sausage of the last killing, saying to herself, however, as she uncovered the jars:

“Time it is that the treasure should be discovered, for whether it is to be found or not, it has already cost us the thirty-two dollars for the famous cup of chocolate, the long-standing friendship of our gossip, Don Matias, these fine slices of meat, that would have made so rich a dish, dressed with peppers and tomatoes, in the month of August, and the having so forbidding-looking a stranger as a guest. Accursed be treasures, and mines, and the devils, and everything that is underground, excepting only water and the faithful departed!”

XIV.

While Dame Torcuata was making these reflections to herself, as she went, with a pan in either hand, toward the fire, cries and hisses of women and children resounded in the street, mingled with other voices in a lower key, saying: