EVERYBODY has heard of the Cave of St. Cyprian at Salamanca, where
in old times judicial astronomy, necromancy, chiromancy, and other
dark and damnable arts were secretly taught by an ancient sacristan;
or, as some will have it, by the devil himself, in that disguise.
The cave has long been shut up and the very site of it forgotten,
though, according to tradition, the entrance was somewhere about where
the stone cross stands in the small square of the seminary of
Carvajal; and this tradition appears in some degree corroborated by
the circumstances of the following story.
There was at one time a student of Salamanca, Don Vicente by name,
of that merry but mendicant class, who set out on the road to learning
without a penny in pouch for the journey, and who, during college
vacations, beg from town to town and village to village to raise funds
to enable them to pursue their studies through the ensuing term. He
was now about to set forth on his wanderings; and being somewhat
musical, slung on his back a guitar with which to amuse the villagers,
and pay for a meal or a night's lodgings.
As he passed by the stone cross in the seminary square, he pulled
off his hat and made a short invocation to St. Cyprian, for good luck;
when casting his eyes upon the earth, he perceived something glitter
at the foot of the cross. On picking it up, it proved to be a seal
ring of mixed metal, in which gold and silver appeared to be
blended.
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