The bishop turned his face to the wall. Some one whispered that he was dead, when he had been thus for some while. The dying man turned his face round, and said:
“Hush! I am praying for my poor sheep! May God pardon them.” Then, after a pause: “I forgive them for having caused my death, most heartily. Poor sheep!”
And he died.
Since then there has been a proverb prevalent in Mexico: “Beware of tasting Chiapa chocolate.”
Gage, the Dominican, did not remain long in Chiapa after the death of his patron: he seldom touched chocolate in that town unless quite certain of the friendship of those who offered it to him; and when he did leave, it was from fear of a fate like the bishop’s,—he having incurred the anger of some of the ladies.
The cathedral presented the same scene as before; the prelate had laboured in vain, and chocolate was copiously drunk at his funeral.
THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE
“There are many ways,” says Del Rio, “in which the Philosopher’s Stone is made. Writers contest with each other which is the right way. Pauladamus opposes the opinion of Brachescus; Villanosanus will have none of the mode of Trevisanus. So one assails another, and all call each other foolish and ignorant.” But however they may have disputed how to make it, no one succeeded in finding the right way, for no one knew where to look for it; and yet the Philosopher’s Stone was before all their eyes to be enjoyed by all alike, but to be appropriated by none. This precious stone, which went by various names, the “Universal Elixir,” the “Elixir of Life,” the “Water of the Sun,” was thought to procure to its happy discoverer and possessor riches innumerable, perpetual health, a life exempt from all maladies and cares and pains, and even in the opinion of some—immortality. It transmuted lead into gold, glass into diamonds, it opened locks, it penetrated everywhere; it was the sovereign remedy to all disease, it was luminous in the darkest night. To fashion it—so the alchemists said—gold and lead, iron, antimony, vitriol, sulphur, mercury, arsenic, water, fire, earth, and air were needed; to these must be added the egg of a cock, and the spittle of doves. Really, said one shrewd and satiric writer, it only wanted oil, vinegar, and salt, to make of it a salad.