We had heard vaguely of a famous cave in the country behind our own district of Son Españolet—a cave important enough to afford shelter to the people of Palma who, in thousands, had fled thither to escape from a plague of cholera that sixty or seventy years before had devastated the town. But while everybody seemed to know of the existence of the cave, no amount of inquiry elicited information as to its exact whereabouts. So on this lovely Christmas morning we resolved to take luncheon with us and spend the day hunting for it.
I think it was the Rudder Grangers who wished to live in the last house of a village, as by doing so they could be in touch with humanity on the one side and with Nature on the other. Our own road, the Calle de Mas, came very near answering these requirements, for, being the last road in the little suburb, it met both town and country. By walking to the end of the houses, over whose garden walls oranges gleamed golden, and turning to the left by the brand-new Villa Dolores, and past the old farm-house that stood hedged in with tall cactus by the wayside, we were at once on the verge of the beautiful rural scenery.
Our informant had been right. The street was empty. As we passed along, a smell as of roast sucking-pig greeted us; but everybody was indoors behind their closely shuttered windows.
The road that leads through the undulating almond and olive groves towards Son Puigdorfila and the hills had never been so deserted. And never had the air been softer or the mountains more mistily blue. The leaves of the gnarled olives shone silver-grey beside the dark, rich foliage of the carob-trees, and the white blossoms of a honey-scented weed thickly flecked the green of the six-inch high grain.
The village of Son Rapiña, perched on its eminence, gleamed like a jewel in the strong sunlight; but the path leading towards it showed not a single traveller. For once, farm-work had ceased; the only sound that reached us was a far-off musical tinkle from the bells of a flock of goats as they moved about, seeking for fallen pods under the great algarroba-trees.
The cave, we had gathered, was somewhere near Son Puigdorfila, but when we had passed that country-house, and had wandered down the valley towards the empty bed of the torrente, we found nothing that in the most remote way suggested the presence of a cave.
We had almost abandoned the quest when a sound of bells warned us of the approach of a herd of plump brindled asses, which appeared under the guidance of an old man.
In his suit of faded blue cotton, with a goatskin slung over his shoulders and a gaily striped kerchief bound round his brow and knotted at the back, the long ends falling beneath his wide-brimmed hat, and a tall staff in his wrinkled brown hands, he was a fine specimen of the hale Majorcan peasant whose declining years hold no greater physical discomfort than a gradual lessening of the full strength of manhood.
He knew of the cave—Cueva Fuente Santa he called it. Nay more, he knew its history from the making to the present day. And while the brindled asses browsed around us he told us the story of the Cave of the Holy Well.