if he
could tear me in pieces, and flung himself all over that sunshine of
earth. 'My gold!' he cried. 'Mine! mine! You shall not take it from
me.' 'If it is yours it is not mine, my father,' I said, feeling
ashamed,--though I still wanted it; 'I will help you to pick it up.' He
got up then, his face very red again, and I could see that he was
trying to put on his dignity as fast as he had put down his cassock--he
looked better with both in place. 'My son,' he said,'the day is warm
and I am very tired, and, I fear, a little ill. These rocks are
nothing. They please my eye, and I pick them up sometimes as I walk
among the hills. Leave them there. I do not want them. We will return
to the Mission.' 'If you do not want them, then may I have them?' I
asked--the blood flew all over my body, my friends. He scowled as if I
had asked him for the candles on the altar. 'No,' he said, 'you
cannot.' Then he put his big hand on my shoulder--he could twist your
neck in a minute with those hands--'Listen to me, my son,' he said,
very soft, and looking so kind now, you can't think. 'There is poison
in those stones, pretty as they are, deadly poison. It has murdered
millions of souls and hundreds of bodies. Therefore I will not let you
touch it--only a priest can touch it without ruining his soul.
Therefore I forbid you---forbid you--' he shouted this over me, 'to
tell any one of what you have seen to-day. Neither your father nor your
mother--no one. Do you understand?' I said 'Yes,' but I did not
promise, and he was excited and did not notice. Then he dragged me
away, and I looked about for other rocks that glittered. But there were
none--not anywhere. And then I knew that they had come out of the hill;
but I said nothing, and when we got back to the Mission and had had
dinner and he was himself again and would have spoken alone with me, I
ran and got on my horse, and all the brothers stood on the corridor to
see me go. He came up to me and blessed me, and whispered: 'Tell no
one, my son. If you do'--and he gave me a look that made my hair
crackle at the roots. And to this day I have told no one. Did I tell my
parents the priest would know in six hours. No boy has stayed here that
I like. But now--"

"We will go to the hill and see for ourselves," said Roldan, promptly,
and Adan gasped with horror and delight.

"Ay, I knew you would. I am brave, but I dared not go myself--that
padre is too big. I wake up in the night and see his hand