"Father," she said to him, "you dealt the first blow, and must deal the last; help these three men in removing this block."
Without replying, the Marquis seized a pick, and placed himself by the side of the workers. The four men dug their tools into the friable earth which adhered to the rock; then, with a common and gradual effort, they began raising the stone until it suddenly lost its balance, toppled over, and fell on the ground, revealing a deep excavation. At the sight of this, all uttered a cry of surprise.
"Burn some wood to purify the air," the young lady said.
They obeyed with that feverish activity which, in great circumstances, seizes on apparently the slowest natures.
"Now come, father," Doña Marianna said, as she seized a lantern and boldly entered the excavation.
The Marquis went in, and the rest followed him. After proceeding for about one hundred yards along a species of gallery, they perceived the body of a man, lying on a sort of clumsy dais, in a perfect state of preservation, and rather resembling a sleeping person than a corpse. Near the body the fleshless bones of another person were scattered on the ground.
"Look!" said the maiden.
"Yes," the Marquis answered, "it is the body interred under the tumulus."
"You are mistaken, father; it is the body of a miner, and the fancied tumulus is nothing but a very rich gold mine, which has remained for ages under the guard of this insensate body, and which it has pleased Heaven to make known to you, in order that you may recover the fortune which you were on the point of losing. Look around you," she said, raising the lantern.
The Marquis uttered a cry of delight and admiration, doubt was no longer possible. All around he saw enormous veins of gold, easy of extraction almost without labour. The Marquis was dazzled; weaker in joy than in suffering, he fell unconscious on the floor of this mine, whose produce was about to restore him all that he had lost.