“It is not for a humble private of the ranks,” said the soldier, modestly, “to pretend to instruct a commander of your Excellency’s sagacity, but it appears to me that your Excellency might cause all the caves and entrances into the mountains to be walled up with solid mason-work, so that Boabdil and his army might be completely corked up in their subterranean habitation. If the good father, too,” added the soldier, reverently bowing to the friar, and devoutly crossing himself, “would consecrate the barricadoes with his blessing, and put up a few crosses and relics and images of saints, I think they might withstand all the power of infidel enchantments.” “They doubtless would be of great avail,” said the friar. The governor now placed his arm akimbo, with his hand resting on the hilt of his toledo, fixed his eye upon the soldier, and gently wagging his head from one side to the other,-- “So, friend,” said he, “then you really suppose I am to be gulled with this cock-and-bull story about enchanted mountains and enchanted Moors? Hark ye, culprit!--not another word. An old soldier you may be, but you’ll find you have an older soldier to deal with, and one not easily outgeneralled. Ho! guards there! put this fellow in irons.” The demure handmaid would have put in a word in favor of the prisoner, but the governor silenced her with a look. As they were pinioning the soldier, one of the guards felt something of bulk in his pocket, and drawing it forth, found a long leathern purse that appeared to be well filled. Holding it by one corner, he turned out the contents upon the table before the governor, and never did freebooter’s bag make more gorgeous delivery. Out tumbled rings, and jewels, and rosaries of pearls, and sparkling diamond crosses, and a profusion of ancient golden coin, some of which fell jingling to the floor, and rolled away to the uttermost parts of the chamber. For a time the functions of justice were suspended; there was a universal scramble after the glittering fugitives. The governor alone, who was imbued with true Spanish pride, maintained his stately decorum, though his eye betrayed a little anxiety until the last coin and jewel was restored to the sack. The friar was not so calm; his whole face glowed like a furnace, and his eyes twinkled and flashed at sight of the rosaries and crosses. “Sacrilegious wretch that thou art!” exclaimed he; “what church or sanctuary hast thou been plundering of these sacred relics?” “Neither one nor the other, holy father. If they be sacrilegious spoils, they must have been taken, in times long past, by the infidel trooper I have mentioned. I was just going to tell his Excellency when he interrupted me, that, on taking possession of the trooper’s horse, I unhooked a leathern sack which hung at the saddle-bow, and which I presume contained the plunder of his campaignings in days of old, when the Moors overran the country.”