During this dialogue, an old Indian of powerful frame had ascended the hillock, and squatted himself down on one of the blocks of lava with which the ground was strewed. The other Leperos seemed to regard him with a certain degree of respect and attention, and, after muttering the name of Tatli Ixtla,[9] they remained silent, as if expecting him to speak. As this, however, did not immediately follow, they let their heads sink again, and relapsed into their previous state of brooding apathy. The Indian gazed mysteriously around him, lit a cigar, and, after a few puffs, broke silence in the low murmuring tones peculiar to the Indian race. "Ixtla has heard the discourse of the Cura Hippolito of Tlascala. It was no _cuento de fraile_.[10] Ixtla has often heard the same from the priests of his own race. Will my brothers hear the words of the Cura Hippolito?" There was an unanimous sign of assent from the Indians. "He who hath ears to hear, let him hear! So said the Cura Hippolito, and so saith Ixtla. When Don Abraham, a most excellent caballero, greatly esteemed both by the Holy Virgin of Guadalupe and by Mexicotl"---- The speaker paused, for his cigar was going out. We take advantage of the pause, to inform our readers that the Don Abraham who was thus strangely, and, according to the custom of the Mexican Indian priests, brought into the society of Mexicotl and the Virgin of Guadalupe, was no other than the Jewish patriarch. "When Don Abraham," continued the Indian, "felt his end approaching, he called his son, Don Isaac, and bequeathed to him all his possessions; after which he died in the Lord. This Don Isaac was, as the senores have perhaps heard, a God-fearing man, who had two sons, Don Esau and Don Jago. Of these, your worships must understand, Don Esau was the elder, or first-born, and Don Jago the younger. And when Don Jago was twenty years old, he had a dream, in which he was told to go to the Madre Patria, where great good fortune awaited him." The man paused at the words Madre Patria, by which the reader will always understand Spain. A number of Leperos had ascended the hillock, and collected round the speaker. "As Senor Don Jago," resumed Tatli Ixtla, "as younger son, had less claim upon the inheritance of his father than Don Esau, he did according to his dream, and betook himself to the Madre Patria, where, by his pleasant discourse, he won the favour of the King of the Moors, who bestowed on him his daughter, the Princesa Dona Lea, in marriage, and also, after two years, his second daughter, the Princesa Dona Rachel. By these two wives he had twelve sons and daughters, who were all kings and queens in the Madre Patria, as well as their father, to whom the Gachupins still pray, under the name of Sant Jago de Compostella."