Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish Part 14

"Yes, in Oran. What is there extraordinary in that? You had come from Oran to Morocco; I went to Oran to buy hens. I inquired there concerning your history, describing your appearance, and some Spaniards living there related it to me. I learned that you were a Galician, that your name was Juan Falgueira, and that you had escaped from the prison of Granada, on the eve of the day appointed for your execution, for having robbed and murdered, fifteen years ago, a party of gentlemen, whom you were serving in the capacity of muleteer. Do you still doubt that I know who you are?"

"Tell me, my soul," responded the renegade, in a hollow voice, looking cautiously around, "have you related this story to any of the Moors? Does any one but yourself in this accursed land know it? Because the fact is, I want to live in peace, without having any one or anything to remind me of that fatal deed which I have well expiated. I am a poor man. I have neither family, nor country, nor language, nor even the G.o.d who made me left to me. I live among enemies, with no other wealth than these oxen and these fields, bought by the fruit of ten years' sweat and toil.

Consequently, you do very wrong to come and tell me--"

"Hold!" cried Manos-gordas, greatly alarmed. "Don't cast those wolfish glances at me, for I come to do you a great service, and not to vex you needlessly. I have told your unfortunate story to no one. What for? Any secret may be a treasure, which he who tells gives away. There are, however, occasions in which an EXCHANGE OF SECRETS may be made with profit. For instance, I am going to tell you an important secret of mine, which will serve as security for yours, and which will oblige us to be friends for the rest of our lives."

"I am listening; go on," responded the renegade quietly.

Aben-Carime then read aloud the Arabic doc.u.ment, which Juan Falgueira listened to without moving a muscle of his still angry countenance.

The Moor seeing this, in order to dispel his distrust, disclosed to him the fact that he had stolen the paper he had just read from a Christian in Ceuta.

The Spaniard smiled slightly to think how great must be the huckster's fear of him to cause him voluntarily to reveal to him his theft, and poor Manos-gordas, encouraged by Ben-Munuza's smile, proceeded to disclose his plans, in the following terms:

"I take it for granted that you understand perfectly well the importance of this doc.u.ment and the reason of my reading it to you. I know not where the Tower of Zoraya, nor Aldeire, nor El Cenet is, nor do I know how to go to Spain, nor should I be able to find my way through that country if I were there; besides which, the people would kill me for not being a Christian, or at least they would despoil me of the treasure after I had found it, if not before. For all these reasons, I require that a trusty and loyal Spaniard should accompany me, a man whose life shall be in my power, and whom I can send to the gallows with half a word; a man, in short like you, Juan Falgueira, who, after all, have gained nothing by robbing and murdering, since you are now toiling here like a donkey, when with the millions I am going to procure you, you can go to America, to France, or to India, and enjoy yourself, and live in luxury, and rise in time perhaps to be king. What do you think of my plan?"

"That it is well put together, like the work of a Moor," responded Ben-Munuza, in whose nervous hands, clasped behind his back, the iron bar swung back and forth like a tiger's tail.

Manos-gordas smiled with satisfaction, thinking that his proposition was already accepted.

"But," added the sombre Galician, "there is one thing you have not considered."

"And what is that?" asked Ben-Carime, throwing back his head with a comical expression, and fixing his eyes on vacancy, like one who is prepared to hear some trivial and easily answered objection.

"You have not considered that I should be an unmitigated fool if I were to accompany you to Spain to put you in possession of half a treasure, relying upon your putting me in possession of the other half. I say this because you would only have to say half a word the day we arrived at Aldeire, and you thought yourself free from danger, to rid yourself of my company and avoid giving me my half of the treasure, after it was found.

In truth, you are not the clever man you imagine yourself to be, but only a simpleton deserving of pity, who have deliberately walked into a trap from which there is no escape, in telling me where this great treasure is to be found, and telling me at the same time that you know my history, and that if I were to accompany you to Spain you would there be absolute master of my life. And what need, then, have I of you? What need have I of your help to go and take possession of the entire treasure myself? What need have I of you in the world at all? Who are you, now that you have read me that doc.u.ment, now that I can take it from you?"

"What are you saying?" cried Manos-gordas, who all at once felt a chill, like that of death, strike to the marrow of his bones.

"I am saying--nothing. Take that!" replied Juan Falgueira, dealing Ben-Carime a tremendous blow on the head with the iron bar. The Moor rolled over on the ground, the blood gus.h.i.+ng from his eyes, nose, and mouth, without uttering a single sound.

The unfortunate man was dead.

XII.

Three or four weeks after the death of Manos-gordas, somewhere about the 20th of February, 1821, it was snowing, if it ever were to snow, in the town of Aldeire, and throughout the beautiful Andalusian sierra to which the snow gives existence, as it were, and a name.

It was Carnival Sunday, and the church bell was for the fourth time summoning to ma.s.s with its thin, clear tones, like those of a child, the s.h.i.+vering Christians of this parish (too near to heaven for their comfort), who found it difficult, on so raw and inclement a day, to bring themselves to leave their beds or to move away from the fire, saying, perhaps, in excuse for their not doing so, that on the three days before Ash-Wednesday wors.h.i.+p should be rendered not to G.o.d, but to the devil.

Some such excuse as this, at least, was given by Uncle Juan Gomez in answer to the arguments with which his pious wife, our friend, Dame Torcuata, tried to persuade him to give up drinking brandy and eating biscuits, and accompany her, instead, to ma.s.s, like a good Christian, regardless of the criticisms of the schoolmaster or the other electors of the liberal party. And the dispute was beginning to grow warm, when suddenly Genaro, his honor's head shepherd, entered the kitchen, and taking off his hat, and scratching his head with the same movement, said:

"G.o.d give us good-day, Senor Juan and Senora Torcuata! You must have guessed already that something has happened up above to bring me down here on a day like this, it not being my Sunday for going to hear ma.s.s. I hope you are both well!"

"There! there! I'll wait no longer!" cried the Alcalde's wife, impatiently, folding her mantilla over her breast. "It was decreed that you were not to hear ma.s.s to-day. You have drink enough there, and conversation enough for the whole day, discussing the question as to whether the goats are with kid or whether the young rams are beginning to get their horns. You will go to perdition, Juan, you will go to perdition, if you don't soon make your peace with the church and give up the accursed alcaldes.h.i.+p!"

When Dame Torcuata had departed, the Alcalde handed a biscuit and a gla.s.s of brandy to the head shepherd, saying:

"Women's nonsense, Uncle Genaro! Draw your chair up to the fire and tell me what you have to say. What is going on up above there?"

"Oh, a mere nothing! Yesterday, Francisco, the goat-keeper, saw a man dressed like a native of Malaga, with long trousers and a linen jacket, and wrapped in a blanket, go into the cattle-yard you are making, from the open side, and walk around the Moor's Tower, examining it and measuring it, as if he were a master-builder. Francisco asked him what he was doing, to which the stranger answered by asking in his turn who was the owner of the tower, and Francisco saying that he was no less a person than the Alcalde of the town, the stranger replied that he would speak with his honor and explain his plans to him. Night soon fell, and as the man pretended to be going away, the goat-herd went to his hut, which, as you know, is but a short distance from the tower. Some two hours later the same Francisco noticed that strange noises proceeded from the tower, in which he also observed a light burning, all which terrified him so greatly, that he did not even venture to go to my hut to tell me of what he had seen and heard. This he did as soon as it was daylight, saying in addition that the noises he had heard in the tower were kept up all night.

As I am an old man and have served my king and am not easily frightened, I went at once to the Moor's Tower, accompanied by Francisco, who trembled at every step he took, and we discovered the stranger, wrapped up in his blanket, asleep in a little room on the ground floor where the plaster still remains on the ceiling. I wakened the mysterious stranger and reproved him for spending the night in a strange house without its owner's permission, to which he answered that the building was not a house, but a heap of ruins, where a poor wayfarer might very well take shelter on a snowy night, and that he was ready to present himself before you and tell you who he was and what his business and his plans were. I have brought him with me, therefore, and he is now out in the yard with the goatherd, waiting for your permission to enter."

"Let him come in," answered Uncle Hormiga, rising to his feet, greatly disturbed, for the thought had presented itself to his mind at the head shepherd's first words, that all this was closely connected with the celebrated treasure, the hope of discovering which, by his own unaided exertions, he had abandoned, a week before, after he had removed, without result, several of the heaviest of the foundation stones.

XIII.

Here, then, we have, face to face and alone, Uncle Juan Gomez and the stranger.

"What is your name?" the former asked the latter, with all the imperiousness warranted by his exalted office, and without inviting him to be seated.

"My name is Jaime Olot," responded the mysterious stranger.

"You do not speak like a native of this country. Are you English?"

"I am a Catalan."

"Ah, a Catalan! That may be. And what brings you to these parts? And, above all, what the devil were you doing yesterday measuring my tower?"

"I will tell you. I am a miner by profession, and I have come to this country, which is famous for its copper and silver mines, in search of work. Yesterday afternoon, pa.s.sing by the Moor's Tower, I saw that a wall was being built with the stones that had been taken from it, and that it would be necessary to tear down a great deal more of the building in order to finish the wall. There is no one who can equal me in pulling down buildings, whether by the use of tools or with hands only, for I have the strength of an ox, and the idea occurred to me that I might be able to make a contract with the owner of the tower to pull it down and dig up the foundation stones."

Uncle Hormiga, with a wink of his little gray eyes, responded, dwelling upon every word:

"Well, that arrangement does not suit me."

"I would do the work for very little--almost nothing."

"Now it would suit me less than before."

The so-called Jaime Olot was puzzled not a little by the mysterious answers of Uncle Juan Gomez, and he tried to get some clue to their meaning from the expression of his face; but as he was unsuccessful in his efforts to read the fox-like countenance of his honor, he added, with feigned naturalness:

"It would not displease me, either, to repair a part of the old building and to live there, cultivating the ground that you had intended for a cattle-yard. I will buy from you, then, the Moor's Tower with the ground around it."

"I do not wish to sell it," responded Uncle Hormiga.

"But I will pay you double what it is worth!" said the self-styled Catalan emphatically.

"It would suit me now less than ever to sell it," replied the Andalusian, with so crafty and insulting a look that his interlocutor took a step backward, suddenly becoming conscious that he was treading on false ground.

He reflected for a moment, therefore, and then raising his head with a determined air, and clasping his hands behind his back, he said, with a cynical laugh:

"So, then, you know that there is a TREASURE on that ground!"

Uncle Juan Gomez leaned over in his seat, and scanning the Catalan from head to foot, exclaimed with a comical air:

"What vexes me is that you, too, should know it!"

"And it would vex you much more if I should tell you that I am the only person who knows it with certainty."