Page:Vagabond life in Mexico.djvu/193

Rh and direction, and sometimes mounting an inclined plane only to descend it. In about a quarter of an hour I perceived in the distance some wandering lights, then a few gigantic shadows appeared on the moist walls of the vault. I still kept on, and soon found myself in a square which the piety of the miners had converted into a chapel. In the centre rose a low altar, ornamented with wax tapers, which burned before an image of a saint. A man, who seemed to be praying fervently, was kneeling upon the steps of the altar. He was the first human being I had seen since entering the mine.

My guide touched my arm.

"Take a good look at this man," he said, in a low tone. The suppliant miner was entirely naked. With out the light of the flambeau, which allowed you to see his gray hair and angular features, you would not have thought he was an old man, so much youth and vigor seemed still to possess his nervous members.

"Why?" I inquired of Desiderio.

"This man," said he, "is no stranger to the history of the hand upon the wall that you gazed at with so much curiosity this morning; and, though that history is as well known to me as to him, perhaps from his lips it would have an additional interest, as his son was concerned in it."

I fancied that I had at last found an opportunity for shaking off Desiderio by insinuating that the narrator would probably go more into detail if he were telling the story to me alone. This time he took the hint.

"I am neither irritable nor quarrelsome," cried he; "but your lordship seems very desirous to get rid of his devoted servant."