struggling to hold their own, and he was wishing that one of those red rocks were a ruby or even a lump of gold, when a dove, whose home was in the Tower of Comares, flew down upon a projecting rock, and cocking his eye most knowingly, looked below as if it saw something there that would be worth having. Blasicho observed the motion, and the thought came to him that the dove was a messenger to point him to the spot where his treasure lay. He took note of the rock, and drew a line, with his eye, to the foot of the hill where the bird’s eye had guided his search. A few feet from the path, up the cliff-side, was a ledge of rock, and it was easy to see that, a century or two ago, a man might have stood on it and worked into the mountain and buried his gold. The ledge would be the mark by which he could find it, and its height was such that no one would suspect that such a spot would be chosen as a hiding-place for money. Poor Bias went home with his head full of the dove and the gold. All day as he sat on his bench pretending to work, the beautiful neck of the dove, with his head turned sideways, and his one eye down looking to the ledge, was before him. That night he dreamed that he went there and broke into the hill with a pick and found a heap of gold. The next morning he went there and the dove came again, and again she peered into the ledge from above, and again Blasicho was comforted with the strengthened hope. He dreamed the second time the same, and came the third morning and the dove met him as before; and again, the third night, he dreamed that he burst into the mountain and was the possessor of more gold than his insatiable spouse had ever dreamed of having. This was more than the anxious cobbler could endure and be quiet. That night in the darkness and alone, for there was no one in Granada he could trust with his discovery, Blasicho sought the ravine, climbed cautiously to the ledge with a bar of iron to aid him in his burglary. He struck in vigorously, for it might be a long night’s work, and time was precious. The hollow sound that answered his blows quickened his heartbeats, for it assured him there was a chamber within. The _débris_ was fast piling at his feet. He was already inside the hill. He heard something grating, rattling above and near him; he rose to his feet only to be struck with a land-slip which his digging had started: it caught him, dashed him off his perch, buried him, bruised him, half killed him, at the foot of his golden hill. The poor fellow struggled from underneath the mass of dirt and stones, and luckily finding no bones were broken, but more dead than alive, he crept home and went to sleep, while his wife was dinging into his ears her reproaches for his bad habits of being out late at nights. He was cured of hunting for gold in the dark. He became a new man, a new cobbler. His early hammer advertised his conversion. Business revived. He had to have some more help in the shop. The shop was soon too small.