Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/156

126 a few hours' rest. No one in the world will suspect your hiding place."

The Spaniard retired to his own apartment. Martin was deeply touched by the generosity with which he had met, and, relying on the good faith of the marquis, resigned himself to a peaceful slumber.

Next morning, at daybreak, the marquis gave his orders for starting, but previously arranged to have an interview with Samuel the Jew. First of all, however, he went to the early morning mass. The Peruvian aristocracy were always constant in their attendance at this service. From its earliest foundation Lima had always been pre-eminently Catholic. Besides its numerous churches, it counted at that time no less than twenty-two convents, seventeen monasteries, and four pensions for ladies who had not actually taken the veil. To each of these separate establishments was attached its own chapel, so that altogether there could not be less than a hundred places of worship, in which about eight hundred secular and regular priests, and three hundred nuns, besides lay brotherhoods and sisterhoods, devoted themselves to the offices of religion.

As he entered St. Anne's the eye of the marquis was attracted by the kneeling figure of a girl, who was weeping as she prayed. So great was her agitation, that he could not repress his sympathy, and was about to address her in some words of kind encouragement, when Father Joachim whispered, "Do not disturb her, marquis, I pray you!" And then he beckoned to the girl, who followed him into a dim and empty chapel. Don Vegal made his way to the altar and attended mass, but could not dismiss from his memory the image of the girl who had so strangely arrested his attention.

Upon his return home he found Samuel the Jew awaiting his commands. Samuel seemed to have entirely forgotten the incidents of the past night; the prospect of gain had made him quite oblivious of all besides, and gave a keen vivacity to the expression of his face. "I await your lordship's commands," he said. "I must have thirty thousand piastres within an hour."

"Thirty thousand!" cried the Jew. "How is it possible? By our holy David, I should have more difficulty in rinding them than you seem to think."