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“Let me see one,” I said.

“Alas! my lord Ignatio, I have none. Not far from the ruined temple where this Zibalbay and his daughter sojourned, is the hacienda of Santa Cruz, and there, as you may have heard, dwell a gang of men under the leadership of one Don Pedro Moreno, who are by profession smugglers, highway robbers, and murderers, though they pretend to earn a living by the cultivation of coffee and cocoa.

“As it chanced, in journeying homewards, I fell into the hands of some of these men. They searched me, and, finding the lumps of gold in my pocket, handed them over to Don Pedro himself, who rode up when he saw that they had the fish in their net. He examined the gold closely, and asked me whence it came. At first I refused to answer, whereupon he said that I should be confined in a dungeon at the hacienda until such time as I chose to speak.

“Then, being mad to get back to my village and learn the fate of my wife, I found my tongue and spoke the truth, saying that the gold was given in exchange for food by an old Indian doctor, who dwelt with his daughter in a ruined temple in the forest.