Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (Spanish).djvu/168

164 tell me without lying, so that I may learn to put faith in you—"

"Ask what you wish; when it does not suit me to speak I shall be silent."

"Do you come from Madrid?"

"No. It is twenty-five years since I was in the capital, for the first and last time."

"Do you come from the Holy Land?"

"No; that is not in my line."

"Are you acquainted with a lawyer of Ugíjar, called Don Matías de Quesada?"

"No; I hate lawyers and all people who live by the pen."

"Well, then, how did this document fall into your possession?"

Jaime Olcot was silent.

"I like that! I see you don't want to lie!" exclaimed the Alcalde. "But there cannot be a doubt that Don Matías de Quesada cheated me as if I were a Chinese, stealing from me two ounces in gold, and then selling that document to some one in Melilla or Ceuta. And the fact is, although you are not a Moor, you look as if you had lived in those countries."

"Don't fatigue yourself, or lose your time guessing further. I will set your doubts at rest. This lawyer you speak of must have sent the manuscript to a Spaniard in Ceuta, from whom it was stolen three weeks ago by the Moor from whose possession it passed into mine."