“Padre!” she exclaimed eagerly. “What is it?”
He dusted it off and examined it carefully in the fast fading light. It was some twelve inches square by three deep, well made of mahogany, and secured by a small, iron padlock. On the top there was a crest of arms and the letters, “I de R,” burned into the wood.
Night had closed in, and the priest and girl made their way hurriedly back home by way of the lake, to avoid being seen. Under his cassock Josè carried the box, so heavy that it chafed the skin from his hip as they stumbled along.
“Carmen, say nothing––but tell your padre Rosendo to come to me at once!”
With the doors secured, and Carmen and Doña Maria standing guard outside to apprise them of danger, Josè and Rosendo covertly examined the discovery.
“I de R!” pondered Rosendo, studying the box. Then––“Caramba! Padre––Caramba! It is Ignacio de Rincón! Hombre! 202 And the crest––it is his! I have seen it before––years and years ago! Caramba! Caramba!” The old man danced about like a child.
“Ignacio de Rincón! Your grandfather!” he kept exclaiming, his eyes big as saucers. Then, hastening out to get his iron bar, he returned and with a blow broke the rusty padlock. Tearing open the hinged cover, he fell back with a loud cry.
Before their strained gaze, packed carefully in sawdust, lay several bars of yellow metal. Rosendo took them out with trembling hands and laid them upon the floor. “Gold, Padre, gold!” he muttered hoarsely. “Gold, buried by your grandfather! Caramba!––
“Hold these, Padre!” hurrying out and returning with a pair of homemade wooden balances. Again and again he carefully weighed the bars. Then he began to calculate. It seemed to Josè that the old man wasted hours arriving at a satisfactory result.
“Padre,” he finally announced in tones which he strove vainly to control, “there cannot be less than six thousand pesos oro here!”