He went around all excited and not able to sleep,so that--on my word of honor--the snake (a male one,of course)didn't dare go out chewing at night,or even go near the chest.But in the daytime,while he was at church or in town,I did my looting.And when he saw the damage and that he wasn't able to do anything about it,he wandered around at night--as I've said--like a spook.
I was afraid that in his wanderings he might stumble onto my key that I kept under the straw.So it seemed to me that the safest thing was to put it in my mouth at night.Because since I'd been with the blind man my mouth had gotten round like a purse,and I could hold twenty or thirty coppers in it--all in half-copper coins--and eat at the same time.If I hadn't been able to do that I couldn't have gotten hold of even a copper that the blasted blind man wouldn't have found:he was always searching every patch and seam on my clothes.Well,as I say,I put the key in my mouth every night,and I went to sleep without being afraid that the zombie master of mine would stumble onto it.But when trouble is going to strike,you can't do a thing to stop it.
The fates--or to be more exact,my sins--had it in store for me that one night while I was sleeping my mouth must have been open,and the key shifted so that the air I breathed out while I was asleep went through the hollow part of the key.It was tubular,and (unfortunately for me)it whistled so loud that my master heard it and got excited.He must have thought it was the snake hissing,and I guess it really sounded like one.
He got up very quietly with his club in hand,and by feeling his way toward the sound he came up to me very softly so the snake wouldn't hear him.And when he found himself so close,he thought that it had come over to where I was lying,looking for a warm place,and had slipped into the straw.So,lifting the club up high,and thinking that he had the snake trapped down there and that he would hit it so hard that he'd kill it,he swung down on me with such a mighty blow that he knocked me unconscious and left my head bashed in.
Then he saw that he'd hit me (I must have really cried out when the blow leveled me),and--as he later told me--he reached over and shouted at me,calling my name and trying to revive me.But when his hands touched me and he felt all the blood,he realized what he'd done,and he went off to get a light right away.When he came back with it he found me moaning with the key still in my mouth:I had never let loose of it,and it was still sticking half out--just like it must have been when I was whistling through it.
The snake killer was terrified,wondering what it could be.He took it all the way out of my mouth and looked at it.Then he realized what it was because its ridges matched his key exactly.He went to try it out,and he solved the crime.Then that cruel hunter must have said:"I've found the mouse and the snake that were fighting me and eating me out of house and home."
I can't say for sure what happened during the next three days because I spent them inside the belly of the whale.But what I've just told I heard about from my master when I came to;he was telling what had happened in detail to everyone who came by.At the end of three days,when I was back in my senses,I found myself stretched out on my straw bed with my head all bandaged up and full of oils and salves.And I got scared and said,"What is this?"
The cruel priest answered,"It seems that I caught the mice and snakes that were ruining me."
I looked myself over,and when I saw how badly beaten up I was,I guessed what had happened.
Then an old lady who was a healer came in,along with the neighbors.And they began to take the wrappings off my head and treat the wound.When they saw that I was conscious again,they were very happy,and they said,'Well,he's got his senses back.God willing,it won't be too serious."
Then they began to talk again about what had happened to me and to laugh.While I--sinner that I am--I was crying.Anyway,they fed me,and I was famished,but they really didn't give me enough.Yet,little by little,I recovered,and two weeks later I was able to get up,out of any danger (but not out of my state of hunger)and nearly cured.
The next day when I'd gotten up,my master took me by the hand and led me out the door,and when I was in the street he said to me:"Lazaro,from now on you're on your own--I don't want you.Go get yourself another master,and God be with you.I don't want such a diligent servant here with me.You could only have become this way from being a blind man's guide."
Then he crossed himself as if I had the devil in me and went back into his house and closed the door.
