There
once was an evil priest who did not fear God or man. His duties for the church
included counting the offerings and ringing the bells to summon people to Mass.
But his heart was filled with greed, and he began to take advantage of the good
people of his parish. The priest stole money out of the offerings to keep for
himself, and when he had filled a chest full of gold, he killed a man and
buried him with the chest so the murdered man's ghost would guard it. Anyone
who tried to dig for the treasure would be devoured by the skeleton of the
murdered man.
The
evil priest planned to return to Spain with his ill-gotten treasure, but he
fell ill with a fever a week before his ship was scheduled to leave. On his
deathbed, the priest repented of his crime. He swore to his confessor that his
soul would not rest until he returned the gold to God. The priest died before
he could reveal the place where the treasure was buried. As he gasped out his
last breath, he said: "Follow the bells. They will lead you to the treasure."
The
Padre who attended the dying priest did not heed his words. But the sweeper who
was working in the hallway at the time of the evil priest's death was struck by
the notion of buried treasure. He was very poor and wanted a better life for
himself and his family, so the sweeper determined to take the treasure for
himself. Each night for a week, he took a shovel and dug in the monastery
gardens, searching for the priests treasure. He found nothing.
One
night the sweeper was awakened from his dreams by the sound of the parish bells
ringing out loudly in the darkness. He leapt to his feet, fearing some
emergency, and then realized that his wife and children had not stirred in
their beds. Remembering the evil priest's last words, the sweeper felt sure
that the mysterious ringing of the bells was for his ears alone, to lead him to
the treasure.
Taking
his shovel, the sweeper followed the sound of the church bells up and up into
the hills. He was gasping for breath when he reached the source of the sound.
He was on a wide ledge overlooking the valley. Two trees guarded the spot, and
it was beside these trees that the glowing, ghostly church bells hovered.
Taking his shovel, the poor sweeper dug a deep hole among the roots of the
trees. After several moments, his shovel hit something hard! Eagerly, he swept
the dirt away from the object and found a small chest. He hauled it out of the
ditch with trembling hands, placed it on a rock, and broke the lock with the
edge of his shovel. when he opened it, piles of yellow gold met his dazzled
eyes. He gathered up a handful of coins, reveling in the weight of so much
money. The coins were cool to his touch, and he felt the smoothness of the
metal as he rubbed the coins between his fingers. And that was when he heard
the moaning...
Looking
up, the sweeper saw the skeleton of the murdered man whom the evil priest had
buried with the treasure. It was rising out of the pit under the trees, eye
sockets glowing with blue flames. "Mine," the skeleton intoned,
stretching its bony arms toward the sweeper. "Mine!"
The
sweeper screamed in terror and leapt away from the box of treasure, dropping
the coins that he held in his hands. He ran down the hill as fast as he could
go, the skeleton in hot pursuit. Behind him, the bells began to ring again as
he fled for his life from the ledge.
The
sweeper kept running long after the sounds of pursuit ceased, and did not stop
until he reached his home. It was only then that he realized he had left his
shovel back with the buried treasure on top of the hill. it was an expensive
shovel and he could not afford to lose it.
Waiting
until daylight, the sweeper went reluctantly back up into the hills to retrieve
it. When he reached the ledge, there was no sign of the skeleton, the chest of
money, or the hole he had dug the night before. He found his shovel at the top
of a tall tree whose first branches began nearly twenty feet above his head.
The skeleton must have placed it there after it chased him down the hill, he
decided grimly, knowing that there was no way he could retrieve it.
Turning
sadly away, the sweeper's eye was caught by a gleam in the bushes near the rock
where he had placed the treasure chest the night before. Carefully, keeping his
eye on the place where the skeleton lay buried, the sweeper felt around the
rock until his hand closed on two gold coins that the ghost had missed.
Casually he put the coins in his pocket and hurried from the ledge. When he got
home, the sweeper put the coins into a sock and hid it under the floorboard for
safekeeping.
.
The
sweeper never went back to the ledge to retrieve the evil priest's buried
treasure, though sometimes he was still awakened by the mysterious sound of the
bells. He knew it would take someone more pious than himself to banish the
ghost of the murdered man and reclaim the money for God. But he did use the
gold coins to send his eldest son to school, and with the left-over change, he
bought himself a new shovel.
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