'Monsieur,' said my guide to me, as we reached the plain, 'I will wager a cigar I can guess what you are going to do at Monsieur Peyrade's.'
'Indeed,' said I, handing him a cigar, 'that will not be so very difficult to guess. At this time of night, when one has travelled six leagues in the Canigou mountains, the principal business I think will be supper.'
'Oh yes, but I mean to-morrow. Come now, I will bet that you have come to Ille to see the idol. I guessed as much when I saw you drawing the likenesses of the saints of Serrabona.'
'The idol! what idol?' the word had excited my curiosity.
'How! have you not heard at Perpignan, that Monsieur Peyrade has found an idol buried in the ground?'
'You mean a statue of terra-cotta, or clay?'
'No, no, of copper, real copper, and there is enough of it to make heaps of sous. She will weigh as much as the big bell of a church. We found her buried deep in the ground, at the foot of an olive tree.'
'You were then present at the discovery?'
'Yes Sir; Monsieur Peyrade told us—that is Jean Coll and me, about a fortnight ago—to root up an old olive tree, which had been frozen last year, for the weather you know was very cold. So you see as we were at work, Jean Coll, who went at it with all his might, gave a blow with his pickaxe, and I heard a bimm, as if he had struck on a bell. What's that? said I. We dug away, and dug away, and presently saw a black hand, which looked like the hand of a dead man, stretching forth from the earth. I was frightened, and ran to Monsieur: 'There are dead men, master,' said I, 'under the olive tree! We had better send for the priest!' 'What, are you talking about dead men?' said he. He comes to the place, and no sooner sees the hand than he begins to cry out like mad, 'An antique! an antique!' You would have thought he had found a treasure. And so to work he goes with pickaxe and hands, and with such a hearty will that he did as much as Jean and I together.'
'And at last what did you find?'