Father Benicio glanced around at him.
"They raised maize, bananas, and a few chickens," he said drily.
"Ship 'em back to ... Spain?" hazarded the drummer.
"No, they simply lived on what they cultivated, and what the Indians gave them."
The salesman's interest flickered out completely. He glanced at the gravestones of the unenterprising monks and moved a step toward the stairs.
Gumersindo attempted to stir up human interest by pointing out a slab of stone in the bottom of the crypt.
"This is not a gravestone; it conceals the entrance of a tunnel. The early Spanish settlers were great troglodytes, Señor Strawbridge. It is impossible to find an old castle or an old church without a tunnel or two leading into it."
"It was necessary in those unsettled times when a man's house was likely to be burned with the man in it unless he could slip out," put in the priest.
"Where does it lead to?" asked Strawbridge, taking rather more interest in this purely mechanical arrangement than in the human background which caused the tunnels to be dug.
"One branch leads down to the river, another to the palacio, and another to the prison, La Fortuna."