“Well, they called in the elders, and talked it over, and they bury him, and give him another chance to rest in peace. But he does not stay buried. A few years more and the crack shows again, and at the end of twelve years, as before, there he lies on the ground, his body as free from the corruption of natural decay as ever. They bury him again, and after twelve years he is up. All around him lie the bones of Isletans who have died after him. The soil he lies in is the same soil which has turned their flesh to dust and their bones to powder. “So it goes on, until my own time. I have seen him, twice. There are old men in our village who have seen him half a dozen times, and have helped to bury him. They don’t tell of it--it is a thing to keep to oneself--but they know of it. The whole village knows of it, but they don’t talk. But the last time he came up we talked it over, and we decided we had enough. This time, if possible, we would make him stay down. “I saw him--in 1910 or ’11 it was--and so did many others. The priest of Isleta saw him. We sent for the governor, and he came and saw. And the archbishop of Santa Fé came, and with him a cardinal who was visiting from Rome itself; they all came. What is more, they drew up a paper, and made two copies, testifying to what they had seen, and signed it. Then they took one copy and placed it with the long-dead padre in a heavy oak coffin, and nailed it down. And the other copy the visiting cardinal took back to Rome to give to the pope. My signature was on it. Then we buried the coffin, deep, and packed the earth hard about it and stamped it down. Then we took planks, two-inch planks, and laid a floor over the entire church, and nailed it down with huge nails. We were resolved that if he came up, he would at least have to work his passage.” “I suppose you’ve heard the last of him, then?” Juan leaned forward. His eyes sparkled. “We hope so. We hope so. But----” He stood up and faced us. “You are good enough to say you believe the word of Juan Pancho. But I will not test your credulity too far. You shall judge for yourselves.” Juan took a lantern from a nail, and lighted it. “Come and see for yourselves!” We followed him across the deserted plaza, whose squat houses showed dimly gray under a windy, blue-black sky. He unlocked the heavy door with a great key, and entered the church. Feeling our way in the dark, bare interior, we advanced to within six feet of the altar, and he placed the lantern on the floor, where it shed a circle of yellow light among the black shadows. We knelt, and touched the nails. The heads were free of the floor. On them were no tool-marks. No hammer had loosened them. We bent down further, and laying our heads aslant the planks, sighted. In the lantern light, we discerned a slight but unmistakable warp in the timbers, the length and width of a man’s body.