Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish Part 11

"By a Moor it was written!"

After a while she added, with a melancholy air:

"Although I am but a poor hand myself at reading writing, I would swear that we hold in our hands the discharge of some soldier of Mohammed who is now in the bottomless pit."

"You say that on account of the tube."

"On account of the tube I say it."

"Well, then, you are altogether wrong, my dear Torcuata, for such a thing as conscription was not known among the Moors, nor is this a discharge.

This is a--a--"

Uncle Hormiga glanced around him cautiously, lowered his voice, and said with air of absolute certainty:

"This paper contains directions where to find a treasure!"

"You are right!" cried his wife, suddenly inspired with the same belief; "and have you already found it? Is it very big? Did you cover it up carefully again? Are the coins gold or silver? Do you think they will pa.s.s current now? What a happiness for our boys! How they will spend money and enjoy themselves in Granada and Madrid! I want to have a look at it. Let us go there. There is a moon to-night!"

"Silly woman! Be quiet! How do you suppose that I could find the treasure by these directions, when I don't know how to read, either in Moorish or in Christian?"

"That's true! Well, then, I'll tell you what to do. As soon as it is daylight, saddle a good mule, cross the Sierra through the Puerto de la Laguna, which they say is safe now, and go to Ugijar, to the house of our gossip, Don Matias Quesada. who knows something of everything. He will explain what is in the paper and give you good advice, as he always does."

"And money enough his advice has cost me, notwithstanding our gossipred!

But I was thinking of doing that myself. In the morning I will start for Ugijar and be back by nightfall; I can do that easily by putting the mule to his speed."

"But be sure and explain everything to him clearly."

"I have very little to explain. The tube was hidden in a hollow, or niche, in the wall, and covered with tiles, like those at Valencia. I tore down the whole of the wall, but I found nothing else. At the surface of the ground begin the foundation walls, built of immense stones, more than a yard square, any one of which it would take two or three men as strong as I am to move. Consequently, it is necessary to know exactly where the treasure is hidden, unless we want to tear up all the foundation walls of the tower, which could not be done without outside help."

"No no; set out for Ugijar as soon as it is daybreak. Offer our gossip a part--not a large one--of what we may find, and as soon as we know where we must dig, I will help you myself to tear up the foundation stones. My darling boys! It is all for them! For my part, the only thing that troubles me is lest there be some sin in this business that we are whispering about."

"What sin can there be in it, you great fool?"

"I can't explain what I mean, but treasures have always seemed to me to have something to do with the devil, or the fairies. And then, you got that ground for so low a rent! The whole town says there was some trickery in the business!"

"That concerns the secretary and councillors. They drew up the doc.u.ments."

"Besides, as I understand, when a treasure is discovered, a part of it must be given to the king."

"That is when it is found on ground that is not one's own, like mine!"

"One's own! One's own! Who knows to whom that tower the Council sold you belonged!"

"Why, to the Moor, of course!"

"And who knows who that Moor may have been? It seems to me, Juan, whatever money the Moor may have hidden in his house should belong to him, or to his heirs, not to you or to me."

"You are talking nonsense. According to that, it is not I who ought to be the Alcalde of Aldeire, but the man who was Alcalde a year ago, at the time of the proclamation of Riego. According to that, we should have to send the rents of the lands of Granada and Guadix, and hundreds of other towns, every year to the descendants of the Moors in Africa."

"It may be that you are right. At any rate, go to Ugijar, and our gossip will tell you what is best to be done in the matter."

III.

Ugijar is distant from Aldeire some four leagues, and the road between the two towns is a very bad one. Before nine o'clock on the following morning, however, Uncle Juan Gomez, wearing his blue stockinet knee-breeches and his embroidered white Sunday boots, was in the office of Don Matias de Quesada, a vigorous old man, a doctor in civil and criminal jurisprudence, the most noted criminal lawyer in that part of the country. He had always been a promoter of lawsuits, and was very wealthy, and had a large circle of influential acquaintances in Granada and Madrid.

When he had heard his worthy gossip's story and had carefully examined the paper, he gave it as his opinion that the doc.u.ment had nothing whatever to do with the treasure; that the hole in which the tube had been found was a sort of closet, and the writing one of the prayers which the Moors read every Friday morning. But notwithstanding this, as he was not thoroughly versed in the Arabic language, he added that he would send the doc.u.ment to a college companion of his who was employed in the Commission of the Holy Places, in Madrid, in order that he might send it to Jerusalem, where it could be translated into Spanish, for which purpose it would be well to inclose to his friend in Madrid a draft for a couple of ounces in gold, for a cup of chocolate.

Uncle Juan Gomez considered seriously before he made up his mind to pay so high a price for a cup of chocolate (which would be paying for the article at the rate of 10,240 reals a pound), but he was so certain in regard to the treasure (and in truth he was not mistaken, as we shall see later on), that he took from his belt eight gold pieces of four dollars each and delivered them to Don Matias, who weighed them one by one before putting them into his purse, after which Hormiga took the road back to Aldeire, resolving in his own mind to continue his excavations under the Moor's tower while the doc.u.ment went to the Holy Land and came back translated; proceedings which, according to the lawyer, would occupy something like a year and a half.

IV.

Uncle Juan had no sooner turned his back upon his gossip and counsellor than the latter took his pen and wrote the following letter:

"Don Bonifacio Tudela y Gonzalez, Chapel-master of the Cathedral of Ceuta.

"MY DEAR NEPHEW-IN-LAW,--To no one but a man of your piety would I confide the important secret contained in the accompanying doc.u.ment. I say important, because without a doubt in it are directions for finding the hiding-place of a TREASURE, of which I will give you a part if I should succeed in discovering it with your help. To this end you must get a Moor to translate the doc.u.ment for you and send me the translation in a certified letter, mentioning the matter to no one, unless it be your wife, whom I know to be a person of discretion.

"Forgive my not having written to you in all these years, but you know how busy a life I lead. Your aunt continues to remember you in her prayers every night. I hope you are better of the affection of the stomach from which you were suffering in 1806, and remain your affectionate uncle-in-law,

"MATIAS DE QUESADA.

"UGIJAR, January 15, 1821.

"P.S.--Regards to Pepa, and tell me when you write if you have any children."

Having written this letter, the distinguished jurisconsult bent his steps toward the kitchen, where his wife was engaged in knitting and minding the olla, and throwing into her lap the four golden coins he had received from Juan Gomez, he said to her, in a harsh, cross voice:

"There, Encarnacion, buy more wheat; it is going to rise in price during the dear months; and see to it that you get good measure. Get my breakfast ready while I go post this letter for Seville, inquiring the price of barley. Let the egg be well done and don't let the chocolate be muddy, as it usually is."

The lawyer's wife answered not a word, but went on with her knitting, like an automaton.

V.

Two weeks later, on a beautiful day in January, a day such as is to be seen only in the north of Africa and the south of Europe, the Chapel-master of the cathedral of Ceuta was enjoying the suns.h.i.+ne on the roof of his two-story house, with the tranquillity of mind proper to one who had played the organ at high ma.s.s and had afterward eaten a pound of anchovies, another of meat, and another of bread, and drank the corresponding quant.i.ty of Tarifa wine.

The worthy musician, who was as fat as a hog and as red as a beet, was slowly digesting his breakfast, while his lethargic gaze slowly wandered over the magnificent panorama of the Mediterranean,--the Straits of Gibraltar, the accursed rock from which they take their name, the neighboring peaks of Anghera and Benzu, and the distant snows of the Lesser Atlas--when he heard hasty steps on the stairs and his wife's silvery voice crying joyfully:

"Bonifacio! Bonifacio! A letter from your uncle! And a heavy letter, too!"

"Well," answered the Chapel-master, turning around like a geographical sphere or globe on the point on which his rotund personality rested on the seat, "what saint can have put it into my uncle's head to remember me? I have been living for fifteen years in this country usurped from Mohammed, and this is the first time that Abencerrage has written to me, although I have written to him a hundred times. Doubtless he wants me to render him some service."

So saying, he opened the epistle, contriving so that the Pepa of the postscript should not be able to read its contents, and the yellow parchment, noisily unfolding itself, greeted their eyes.

"What has he sent us?" asked his wife, a native of Cadiz, and a blonde, attractive and fresh-looking, notwithstanding her forty summers.

"Don't be inquisitive, Pepita. I will tell you what is in the letter, if I think you ought to know, as soon as I have read it. I have warned you a thousand times to respect my letters."