Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish
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Various >> Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish
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"On the contrary," he answered, "this exercise is good for me; it will put
my blood in motion and keep me from being like our sons, the students who,
according to what the storekeeper tells me, were at the theatre in Granada
the other night looking so yellow that it was enough to make one sick to
see them."
"Poor boys! From studying so much! But you ought to be ashamed to work
like a laborer, when you are the richest man in the town, and Alcalde into
the bargain."
"That is why I take no one with me. Here, hand me that salad!"
"It would be well to have some one to help you, however. You will spend an
age in pulling down the tower by yourself, and besides, you may not be
able to manage it."
"Don't talk nonsense, Torcuata. When I begin to build the wall of the
cattle yard, I shall hire workmen, and even employ a master-builder. But
any one can pull down. And it is such fun to destroy! Come, clear away the
table and let us go to bed."
"You speak that way because you are a man. As for me, it disturbs and
saddens me to see things destroyed."
"Old women's notions. If you only knew how many things there are in the
world that ought to be destroyed!"
"Hold your tongue, you free-mason! It was a misfortune they ever elected
you Alcalde. You will see when the Royalists come into power again that
the king will have you hanged!"
"Yes, we shall see! Bigot! Hypocrite! Owl! Come, I am sleepy; stop
blessing yourself and put out that light."
And thus they would argue until one or the other of the consorts fell
asleep.
II.
One evening Uncle Hormiga returned from his work every thoughtful and
preoccupied, and earlier than usual.
His wife waited until after he had dismissed the laborers to ask him what
was the matter, when he responded by showing her a leaden tube with a
cover, somewhat like the tube in which a soldier on furlough keeps his
leave, from which he drew a yellow parchment covered with crabbed
handwriting, and carefully unrolling it said, with imposing gravity:
"I don't know how to read, even in Spanish, which is the easiest language
in the world, but the devil take me if this was not written by a Moor."
"That is to say that you found it in the tower?"
"I don't say it on that account alone, but because these spider's legs
don't look like anything I ever saw written by a Christian."
The wife of Juan Gomez looked at the parchment, smelled it, and exclaimed,
with a confidence as amusing as it was ill-founded:
"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 pass
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 documents."
"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 document 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 document 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 document 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 document. 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 document 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 sunshine on the
roof of his two-story house, with the tranquillity of mind proper to one
who had played the organ at high mass and had afterward eaten a pound of
anchovies, another of meat, and another of bread, and drank the
corresponding quantity 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."
"A proper precaution for a libertine like you! At any rate be quick, and
let us see if I may know what that large paper is that your uncle has sent
you. It looks like a bank-note from the other world."
While his wife was making these and other observations, the musician
finished reading the letter, whose contents surprised him so greatly that
he rose to his feet without the slightest effort.
Dissimulation was so habitual with him, however, that he was able to say,
in a natural tone of voice:
"What nonsense! The wretched man is no doubt already in his dotage! Would
you believe that he sends me this leaf from a Hebrew Bible, in order that
I may look for some Jew who will buy it, the foolish creature supposing
that he will get a fortune for it. At the same time," he added, to change
the conversation, putting the letter and the parchment into his pocket,--
"at the same time, he asks me with much interest if we have any children."
"He has none himself," cried Pepita quickly. "No doubt he intends to leave
us something."
"It is more likely the miserly fellow thinks of our leaving him something.
But hark, it is striking eleven. It is time for me to go tune the organ
for vespers. I must go now. Listen, my treasure; let dinner be ready by
one, and don't forget to put a couple of good potatoes into the pot. Have
we any children! I am ashamed to tell him we have none. See, Pepa," said
the musician, after a moment, having in mind, no doubt, the Arabic
document, "if my uncle should make me his heir, or if I should ever grow
rich by any other means, I swear that I will take you to the Plaza of San
Antonio in Cadiz to live, and I will buy you more jewels than Our Lady of
Sorrows of Granada has. So good-bye for a while, my pigeon."
And, pinching his wife's dimpled chin, he took his hat and turned his
steps--not in the direction of the cathedral, but in that of the poor
quarter of the town in which the Moorish citizens of Ceuta for the most
part live.
VI.
In one of the narrowest streets of this quarter, seated on the floor or
rather on his heels, at the door of a very modest but very neat
whitewashed house, smoking a clay pipe, was a Moor of some thirty-five or
forty years of age, a dealer in eggs and chickens, which the free peasants
of Sierra Bullones and Sierra Bermeja brought to him to the gates of
Ceuta, and which he sold either in his own house or at the market, with a
profit of a hundred per cent. He wore a white woollen chivala and a black
woollen, hooded Arab cloak, and was called by the Spaniards, Manos-gordas,
and by the Moors, Admet-Ben-Carime-el-Abdoun.
When the Moor saw the Chapel-master approaching, he rose and advanced to
meet him, making deep salaams at every step, and when they were close
together, he said cautiously:
"You want a little Moorish girl? I bring to-morrow little dark girl of
twelve--"
"My wife wants no more Moorish servants," answered the musician stiffly.
Manos-gordas began to laugh.
"Besides," continued Don Bonifacio, "your infernal little Moorish girls
are very dirty."
"Wash!" responded the Moor, extending his arms crosswise and inclining his
head to one side.
"I tell you I want no Moorish girls," said Don Bonifacio. "What I want
to-day is that you, who know so much that you are Interpreter of the
Fortress, should translate this document into Spanish for me."
Manos-gordas took the document, and at the first glance murmured:
"It is Moor--"
"Of course, it is in Arabic. But I want to know what it says, and if you
do not deceive me I will give you a handsome present--when the business
which I am about to entrust you with is concluded."
Meantime Admet-Ben-Carime glanced his eye over the document, turning very
pale as he did so.
"You see that it concerns a great treasure?" the Chapel-master
half-affirmed, half-asked.
"Me think so," stammered the Mohammedan.
"What do you mean by saying you think so? Your very confusion tells
plainly that it is so."
"Pardon," replied Manos-gordas, a cold sweat breaking out over his body.
"Here words modern Arabic--I understand. Here words ancient, or classic
Arabic--I no understand."
"What do the words that you understand signify?"
"They signify GOLD, they signify PEARLS, they signify CURSE OF ALA. But I
no understand meaning, explanations, or signs. Must see the Dervish of
Anghera--wise man and translate all. I take parchment to day and bring
parchment to-morrow, and deceive not nor rob Senor Tudela. Moor swear."
Saying which he clasped his hands together, and, raising them to his lips,
kissed them fervently.
Don Bonifacio reflected; he knew that in order to decipher the meaning of
this document he should be obliged to take some Moor into his confidence,
and there was none with whom he was so well acquainted and who was so well
disposed to him as Manos-gordas; he consented, therefore, to confide the
manuscript to him, making him swear repeatedly that he would return on the
following day from Anghera with the translation, and swearing to the Moor
on his side that he would give him at least a hundred dollars when the
treasure should be discovered.
The Mussulman and the Christian then separated, and the latter directed
his steps, not to his own house, nor to the cathedral, but to the office
of a friend of his, where he wrote the following letter:
"Senor Don Matias de Quesada y Sanchez, Alpujarra, Ugijar.
"MY DEAREST UNCLE,--Thanks be to God that we have at last received news
of you and of Aunt Encarnacion, and as good news as Josefa and I could
desire. We, my dear uncle, although younger than you and my aunt, are full
of ailments and burdened with children, who will soon be left orphans and
compelled to beg for their bread.
"Whoever told you that the document you sent me bore any reference to a
treasure deceived you. I have had it translated by a competent person, and
it turns out to be a string of blasphemies against our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Holy Virgin, and the Saints, written in Arabic verses, by a Moorish
dog of the Marquisate of El Cenet, during the rebellion of Aben-Humeya.
In view of its sacrilegious nature, and by the advice of the Senor
Penitentiary, I have just burned this impious testimony to Mohammedan
perversity.
"Remembrances to my aunt; Josefa desires to be remembered to you both; she
is now for the tenth time in an interesting condition, and your nephew,
who is reduced to skin and bone by the wretched affection of the stomach,
which you will remember, begs that you will send him some assistance.
"BONIFACIO.
"CEUTA, January 29, 1821."
VII.
While the Chapel-master was writing and posting this letter,
Admet-el-Abdoun was gathering together in a bundle all his wearing apparel
and household belongings, consisting of three old hooded mantles, two
cloaks of goat's wool, a mortar for grinding alcazuz, an iron lamp, and a
copper skillet full of pesetas, which he dug up from a corner of the
little yard of his house. He loaded with all this his one wife, slave,
odalisque, or whatever she might be, a woman uglier than an unexpected
piece of bad news, and filthier than her husband's conscience, and issued
forth from Ceuta, telling the soldier on guard at the gate opening on the
Moorish country that they were going to Fez for change of air, by the
advice of a veterinary; and as from that day--now more than sixty years
ago--to this no one in Ceuta or its neighborhood has ever again seen
Manos-gordas, it is obvious that Don Bonifacio Tudela y Gonzalez had not
the satisfaction of receiving from his hands the translation of the
document, either on the following, or on any other day during the
remainder of his existence; which, indeed, cannot have been very long,
since, according to reliable information, it appears that his adored
Pepita took to herself, after his death, another husband, an Asturian
drum-major residing in Marbella, whom she presented with four children,
beautiful as the sun, and that she was again a widow at the time of the
death of the king, at which epoch she gained, by competition in Malaga,
the title of gossip and the position of matron in the custom-house.
And now let us follow Manos-gordas and learn what became of him and of the
mysterious document.
VIII.
Admet-ben-Carime-el-Abdoun breathed freely, and even danced a few steps
for joy, without dancing off his ill-fastened slippers, however, as soon
as he found himself outside the massive walls of the Spanish fortress and
with all Africa before him.
For Africa, for a true African like Manos-gordas, is the land of absolute
liberty; of a liberty anterior and superior to all human constitutions and
institutions; of a liberty resembling that enjoyed by the wild rabbits and
other wild animals of the mountain, the valley, or the desert.
By this I mean to say that Africa is the paradise of evil-doers, the safe
asylum, the neutral ground of both men and beasts, protected here by the
intense heat and the vast extent of the deserts. As for the sultans,
kings, and beys who fancy they rule here, and the authorities and soldiers
who represent them, it may be said that they are for such subjects what
the hunter is for the hare or for the stag--a misadventure which one in a
hundred may chance to meet with, and which may or may not result fatally;
if he who meets it dies, he is remembered on the anniversary of his death;
and if he does not die, he takes himself off to a sufficient distance from
the scene of his mishap--and no more is thought about the matter. With
this digression we will now resume the thread of our story.
"This way, Zama!" cried the Moor to his weary consort, as if he were
calling to a beast of burden.
And instead of turning eastward, that is to say toward the gap of Anghera,
in quest of the holy sage, in accordance with his promise to Don
Bonifacio, he proceeded southward along a ravine overgrown with wild
brambles and forest trees which soon brought him to the Tetuan road; that
is to say, to the indistinct footpath which, following the indentations of
the coast, leads to Cape Negro by the valley of the Tarajar, the valley of
the Castillejos, Mount Negro, and the lakes of Azmir River, names which
are now heard by every true Spaniard with love and veneration, but which
at the time of our story had not yet been pronounced either in Spain or in
any other part of the civilized world.
When Ben-Carime and Zama had reached the little valley of the Tarajar,
they sat down to rest for a while at the edge of the rivulet which, rising
in the heights of Sierra Bullones, runs through it, and in this wild and
secluded spot, that seemed as if it had come fresh from the Creator's hand
and had never yet been trod by the foot of man, looking out on the
solitary ocean, whose waters were untracked save, on an occasional
moonlight night, by some pirate caravel or government vessel sent from
Europe in pursuit of it, the Moorish woman proceeded to make her toilet,
performing her ablutions in the stream, and the Moor unfolded the
manuscript and read it again, manifesting no less emotion than he had
shown on the previous occasion.
The contents of the Arabian manuscript were as follows:
"May the benediction of Allah rest on all good men who read these lines!
"There is no glory but the glory of Allah, whose prophet and messenger
Mohammed was and is, in the hearts of the faithful.
"May those who rob the house of him who is at the wars, or in exile, be
accursed of Allah and of Mohammed, and die eaten up by beetles and
cockroaches!
"Blessed be Allah, who created these and other vermin to devour the
wicked!
"I am the _caid_ Hassan-ben-Jussef, the servant of Allah, although I am
miscalled Don Rodrigo de Acuna by the successors of the Christian dogs
who, by force and in violation of solemn compact, baptized, with a broom
of hyssop, my ill-fated ancestors, together with many other Islamites of
these kingdoms.
"I am a captain, serving under the banner of him whose lawful title,
since the death of Aben-Humaya, is King of Andalusia,
Muley-Abdallah-Mahamud-Aben-Aboo, who does not now sit on the throne of
Granada because of the treachery and cowardice with which the Moors of
Valencia broke their oaths and compacts, failing to rise with the Moors of
Granada against the common enemy: but they will receive their reward from
Allah, and if we are conquered, they, too, will be conquered and in the
end expelled from Spain, without the merit of having fought to the last on
the field of honor in defence of their rights; and if we are the
conquerors we will cut off their heads and throw them to the swine.
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