The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-04-10


need not. for it is at the best n shame
full story. Yet there / fancied / could
put my past away. | was sure those |
had wronged would not follow so far;
and / felt safe-if a man can be safe
from his memories. For memories now
and then would come, would bother;
then I longed for money with which to
make restitution with Il hurried desire.
For what / had left was but a pittance,
to keep me for many years i'll tins SIM
pie Mexican village. | had lost most
that | had stolen in many ventures,
taken in the vain hope.
Have you ever been in Mexico: Gan
you imagine that village far away over
the border-its long sunny street, De-
tween the adobe houses: It's llstless folk,
with more of the Indian than the Span
lard. High above on both sides was the
street scattered slopes Of the noun
tains; and a quarter mile up the valley
on rounded hill. stood the old mon
astery of Corpus Christi, hu;ldcd. If was
said, by a generation that had known
Montezuma. Who knows? Perhaps the
monks did-these few brown-cowied
brothers, the survivors of the great or
der. AS l sat idly smoking, | wondered
ut them. thinking how much easier a
monastery might have heen for me.
| myself did not make the ac1uaint-
ance Of the monks. The villagers some
times chatted with me. | knew All the
affairs of my fat landlady and her black
eyed daughter, about whom three young
fellows We're passionate. These folk hal
been curious when | had appeared on
donkey back from over the slope But
habit stiles curiosity, and | lived on
almost the sole guest of the old inn
For the mountain village was out of
the way of travel: centuries bad passed
since it had been station on the route
to the now long abandoned silver mines
of the mountains. And DAYS ana
months passed for me as they will in
such an cutoff he-way place, where the
events and talk of the world seem of
no moment; and, as | say, / longed with
an eyer-increasing desire for ali | had
frittered away-hOnor and position and
love had lost in the New England town
where the winters might be bitter and
the summers fierce, but where The old
habit of my Anglo-Saxon blood called.
All, if / only had money to repair that
wrong. For gold | longed, and Of its
pOTen1aI1Iv ufedmeu.
/ had been at Corpus Christi year
before the two who were to be my COM
rades appeared. One-I knew him as
John Fenton-was a little clerkly book
ish man with a certain fright always in
his sunken eyes; yet plainly man OF
gentle breeding. The other. who called
himself Borden. was his antithesis, II
burly. red-faced, oath-hinging bravo.
lot sn4a 80 II II
have in common. But / did not dare
ask them of their past. of their bond Of
union, lest they should ask of mine.
Possibly they had the same reason. for
they never inauired. We knew that we
belonged somewhere over the border.
Isolation, and the same conditions of
past, make strange companionship. III
desperation-amo these simple village
folk--I struck up a friendship with Dor
den. Many sunny day we passed IN
the shaded court of the inn, playing
gloomily with a greasy pack Borden had.
On one thing we agreed: we wanted
money; that alone would repair the
cloak of responsibility we had worn
threadbare.
AS we talked. little Fenton would
smile gloomily, and would disappear ZIP
the slope to- the monastery. For he
strangely had made an acquaintance
there: and every day he would return
with pile of old manuscript from the
library of the place; records-forgotten
by scholars-of the early history of So
nora Then Borden let drop the only
remark he ever had about the pasts of
either; Ffenton was a scholar, a lin
gtiist. who had been a tutor at a New
England college, Again / wondered
what had brought together these two,
so dissimilar.
One evenng-ah, / never may forget
tive Were sitting by Pickering candles
in my room, Borden and |, at our gam
ing. and Fenton reading a manuscript
he had brought that day from the men
astery. THE monks, an illiterate let,
did rot care, or note, their treasures Of
the time when Spain was great. and her
yenturesome gentlemen were about
these far mountains seeking gold and
it's power. Possibly these brothers of
Corpus Christi wondered at this pale,
little-faced man, who amused his exile
with papers that to them had no value:
for. as | have said, scholarship had died
in that cloister
IF it were So" said Fenton, looking
at us suddenly.
'EIl, what's so. BOD! said Borden.
THAT Miguel Santos left his treas
ures in the mountains back from Cor
pus Christi"
H. said Borden. ''stop your
lingo No such luck"
Luck said | YEARLY, maligning my
own.
Listen said the little man, whose
past l say j wondered at, and he read;
In those days the governor ruled So
nora not so much as Miguel Santos.
Nay, Santos laid tribute of the governor.
and of all who passed; and Miguel Sam
tos' wealth was great beyond imagina-
ton. Yet every piece of gold, they say,
was blood stained!'
There are Others" said Borden, deal
ing the cards
Listen said the other rather eager
~.
But in his old age remorse seized
Santos, and he retired into tie monas-
terry of Corpus Christi, where he led in
every respect sanity lfe-save in the
single one, that he made no restitution.
To this day the treasure iS hiJ i'm tho