"But that is not a difficult thing to guess," I replied, holding out a cigar to him. "At this hour, after traversing six leagues amongst the Canigou hills, the grand question is supper."
"Yes, but to-morrow?... Wait, I will bet that you have come to Ille to see the statue. I guessed that when I saw you draw pictures of the Saints at Serrabona."
"The statue! What statue?" The word had excited my curiosity.
"What! did no one tell you at Perpignan that M. de Peyrehorade had found a statue in the earth?"
"Did you mean a statue in terra-cotta, or clay?"
"Nothing of the kind. It is actually in copper, and there is enough of it to make heaps of coins. It weighs as much as a church bell. It is deep in the ground, at the foot of an olive tree that we dug up."
"You were present, then, at the find?"
"Yes, sir. M. de Peyrehorade told Jean Coll and me, a fortnight ago, to uproot an old olive tree which had been killed by the frost last year, for there was a very severe frost, you will remember. Well, then, whilst working at it with all his might, Jean Coll gave a blow with his pickaxe, and I heard bimm!... as though he had struck on a bell. 'What is that?' I said. He picked and picked again, and a black hand appeared, which looked like the hand of a dead man coming out of the ground. I felt frightened; I went to the master and said to him: 'There are dead folk, master, under the olive tree; I wish you would send for the priest.' 'What dead folk?' he asked. He came, and had no sooner seen the hand than he cried out, 'An antique statue! an antique statue!' You might have thought he had discovered a treasure. And then he set to with pickaxe and hands, and worked hard; he did almost as much work as the two of us together."
"And what did you find in the end?"
"A huge black woman, more than half naked, saving your presence, sir, all in copper, and M. de Peyrehorade told us that it was an idol of pagan times ... perhaps as old as Charlemagne!"