Poor old Buscabeatas presently began to reflect upon the matter with calmness, and comprehended that his beloved treasures could not be in Rota, where it would be impossible to expose them for sale without risk of their being recognised, and where, besides, vegetables bring a very low price.
“I know as well as if I saw them, that they are in Cadiz!” he ended. “The scoundrel! the villain! the thief must have stolen them between nine and ten o’clock last night, and got off with them at midnight on the freight-boat. I shall go to Cadiz this morning on the hour-boat, and it will surprise me greatly if I do not catch the thief there, and recover the children of my toil.”
After he had thus spoken, he remained for some twenty minutes longer on the scene of the catastrophe, whether to caress the mutilated vines, to calculate the number of pumpkins that were missing, or to formulate a declaration of the loss sustained, for a possible suit; then, at about eight o’clock, he bent his steps in the direction of the wharf.
The hour-boat was just going to sail. This was a modest coaster which leaves Cadiz every morning at nine lock precisely, carrying passengers, as the freight-boat leaves Cadiz every night at twelve, laden with fruits and vegetables.
The former is called the hour-boat because in that space of time, and occasionally even in forty minutes, if the wind is favourable, it makes the three leagues which separate the ancient village of the Duke of Arcos from the ancient city of Hercules.
It was, then, half-past ten in the morning on the before-mentioned day, when old Buscabeatas passed before a vegetable-stand in the market of Cadiz, and said to the bored policeman who was accompanying him—
“Those are my squashes! arrest that man!” and he pointed to the vendor.
“Arrest me!” cried the vendor, astonished and enraged. “These squashes are mine; I bought them!”
“You will have to prove that before the judge!” answered old Buscabeatas.