"As long as you please, mi amo."
And the tigrero, collecting the tools and lanterns, installed himself in the excavation itself, a few yards from the body still lying on the dais.
The other four slowly returned to the hacienda, conversing about this marvellous discovery, which, at the moment when all seemed desperate, saved the family. In fact, the gold veins were so rich, that it would be possible to detach in a single day enough nearly to cover all the debts contracted by the Marquis. They re-entered the blue room; and though it was very late, not one of them felt the slightest inclination to sleep; on the contrary, they wanted still to converse about the mine.
"Well," the Marquis said, "you did not dream that so rich a mine existed on the estate; you allowed as much just now."
"In truth, father, someone was kind enough to give me the information by which I found it."
"But who can this person be, who is better acquainted than myself with a property which has been in the hands of the family more than three hundred years, and yet nobody suspected that it contained this treasure?"
"The probability is that the secret was well kept, father."
"Of course; but by whom?"
"By the old owners of the soil, of course."
"Nonsense! You are jesting, daughter. Those poor Indians disappeared long ago from the face of the earth."