第118章

"Murderers!" he answered, "far worse criminals than they.By the by, I have heard that you English entertain the utmost abhorrence of murder.Do you in reality consider it a crime of very great magnitude?" "How should we not," I replied; "for every other crime some reparation can be made; but if we take away life, we take away all.A ray of hope with respect to this world may occasionally enliven the bosom of any other criminal, but how can the murderer hope?" "The friars were of another way of thinking," replied the old man; "they always looked upon murder as a friolera; but not so the crime of marrying your first cousin without dispensation, for which, if we believe them, there is scarcely any atonement either in this world or the next."Two or three days after this, as we were seated in my apartment in the posada, engaged in conversation, the door was opened by Antonio, who, with a smile on his countenance, said that there was a foreign GENTLEMAN below, who desired to speak with me."Show him up," I replied; whereupon almost instantly appeared Benedict Mol.

"This is a most extraordinary person," said I to the bookseller."You Galicians, in general, leave your country in quest of money; he, on the contrary, is come hither to find some."REY ROMERO.- And he is right.Galicia is by nature the richest province in Spain, but the inhabitants are very stupid, and know not how to turn the blessings which surround them to any account; but as a proof of what may be made out of Galicia, see how rich the Catalans become who have settled down here and formed establishments.There are riches all around us, upon the earth and in the earth.

BENEDICT.- Ow yaw, in the earth, that is what I say.

There is much more treasure below the earth than above it.

MYSELF.- Since I last saw you, have you discovered the place in which you say the treasure is deposited?

BENEDICT.- O yes, I know all about it now.It is buried `neath the sacristy in the church of San Roque.

Myself.- How have you been able to make that discovery?

BENEDICT.- I will tell you: the day after my arrival Iwalked about all the city in quest of the church, but could find none which at all answered to the signs which my comrade who died in the hospital gave me.I entered several, and looked about, but all in vain; I could not find the place which I had in my mind's eye.At last the people with whom I lodge, and to whom I told my business, advised me to send for a meiga.

MYSELF.- A meiga! What is that?

BENEDICT.- Ow! a haxweib, a witch; the Gallegos call them so in their jargon, of which I can scarcely understand a word.So I consented, and they sent for the meiga.Och! what a weib is that meiga! I never saw such a woman; she is as large as myself, and has a face as round and red as the sun.

She asked me a great many questions in her Gallegan, and when Ihad told her all she wanted to know, she pulled out a pack of cards and laid them on the table in a particular manner, and then she said that the treasure was in the church of San Roque;and sure enough, when I went to that church, it answered in every respect to the signs of my comrade who died in the hospital.O she is a powerful hax, that meiga; she is well known in the neighbourhood, and has done much harm to the cattle.I gave her half the dollar I had from you for her trouble.

MYSELF.- Then you acted like a simpleton; she has grossly deceived you.But even suppose that the treasure is really deposited in the church you mention, it is not probable that you will be permitted to remove the floor of the sacristy to search for it.

BENEDICT.- Ow, the matter is already well advanced.

Yesterday I went to one of the canons to confess myself and to receive absolution and benediction; not that I regard these things much, but I thought this would be the best means of broaching the matter, so I confessed myself, and then I spoke of my travels to the canon, and at last I told him of the treasure, and proposed that if he assisted me we should share it between us.Ow, I wish you had seen him; he entered at once into the affair, and said that it might turn out a very profitable speculation: and he shook me by the hand, and said that I was an honest Swiss and a good Catholic.And I then proposed that he should take me into his house and keep me there till we had an opportunity of digging up the treasure together.This he refused to do.

REY ROMERO.- Of that I have no doubt: trust one of our canons for not committing himself so far until he sees very good reason.These tales of treasure are at present rather too stale: we have heard of them ever since the time of the Moors.

BENEDICT.- He advised me to go to the Captain General and obtain permission to make excavations, in which case he promised to assist me to the utmost of his power.

Thereupon the Swiss departed, and I neither saw nor heard anything farther of him during the time that I continued at Saint James.