In a little while a fat capon was devoured, and washed
down by a deep potation of Val de Penas; and, by way of grace after
meat, he gave a kind-hearted kiss to the pet lamb who waited on him.
It was quietly done in a corner, but the tell-tale walls babbled it
forth as if in triumph. Never was chaste salute more awful in its
effects. At the sound the soldier gave a great cry of despair; the
coffer, which was half raised, fell back in its place and was locked
once more. Priest, student, and damsel, found themselves outside of
the tower, the wall of which closed with a thundering jar. Alas! the
good Padre had broken his fast too soon!
When recovered from his surprise, the student would have
re-entered the tower, but learnt to his dismay that the damsel, in her
fright, had let fall the seal of Solomon; it remained within the
vault.
In a word, the cathedral bell tolled midnight; the spell was
renewed; the soldier was doomed to mount guard for another hundred
years, and there he and the treasure remain to this day- and all
because the kind-hearted Padre kissed his handmaid. "Ah father!
father!" said the student, shaking his head ruefully, as they returned
down the ravine, "I fear there was less of the saint than the sinner
in that kiss!"
Thus ends the legend as far as it has been authenticated. There is a
tradition, however, that the student had brought off treasure enough
in his pocket to set him up in the world; that he prospered in his
affairs, that the worthy Padre gave him the pet lamb in marriage, by
way of amends for the blunder in the vault; that the immaculate damsel
proved a pattern for wives as she had been for handmaids, and bore her
husband a numerous progeny; that the first was a wonder; it was born
seven months after her marriage, and though a seven months boy, was
the sturdiest of the flock.
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