The officers and people of high rank escaped safely in a skiff,along with two priests who were on board.But my clothes were so bad that I couldn't fit inside.When I had my fill of eating,I went over to a cask full of good wine and transferred as much as I could hold into my stomach.I forgot all about the storm,myself,and everything.The ship started to sink and the water came pouring in as though it had found its home.A corporal grabbed my hands and as he was dying he asked me to listen to a sin he wanted to confess.He said he hadn't carried out a penance he had been given,which was to make a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Loreto,even though he had had many opportunities to do it.And now that he wanted to,he couldn't.I told him that with the authority vested in me,I would commute his penance,and that instead of going to Our Lady of Loreto,he could go to Santiago.
"Oh,sir,"he said."I would like to carry out that penance,but the water is starting to come into my mouth,and I can't."
"If that's the way it is,"I said,"the penance I give you is to drink all the water in the sea."
But he didn't carry that out either because there were many men there who drank as much as he did.When it came up to my mouth I said to it:Try some other door,this one is not opening.And even if it had opened,the water couldn't have gotten in,because my body was so full of wine it looked like a stuffed pig.As the ship broke apart a huge swarm of fish came in.It was as though they were being given aid from the bodies on board.They ate the flesh of those miserable people who had been overcome by a drop in the ocean,as if they were grazing in the county pasture.They wanted to try me out,but I drew my trustworthy sword and without stopping to chat with such a low-class mob,I laid into them like a donkey in a new field of rye.
They hissed at me:"We're not trying to hurt you.We only want to see if you taste good."
I worked so hard that in less than half-a-quarter of an hour I killed more than five hundred tuna,and they were the ones that wanted to make a feast out of the flesh of this sinner.The live fish began to feed on the dead ones,and they left Lazaro's company when they saw it wasn't a very profitable place to be.I found myself lord of the sea,with no one to oppose me.I ran around from one place to another,and I saw things that were unbelievable:huge piles of skeletons and bodies.And I found a large number of trunks full of jewels and gold,great heaps of weapons,silks,linens,and spices.I was longing for it all and sighing because it wasn't back at home,safe,so that,as the buffoon says,I could eat my bread dipped in sardines.
I did what I could,but that was nothing.I opened a huge chest and filled it full of coins and precious jewels.I took some ropes from the piles of them there and tied up the chest,and then I knotted other ropes together until I had one I thought was long enough to reach to the surface of the water.If I can get all this treasure out of here,I thought to myself,there won't be a tavernkeeper in the world better off than I'll be.I'll build up my estate,live off my investments,and buy a summer house in Toledo.They'll call my wife "Madam,"and me they'll call "Sir."I'll marry my daughter to the richest pastrycook in town.Everyone will come to congratulate me,and I'll tell them that I worked hard for it,and that I didn't take it out of the bowels of the earth but from the heart of the sea.That I didn't get damp with sweat but drenched as a dried herring.I have never been as happy in my life as I was then,and I wasn't even thinking about the fact that if I opened my mouth I would stay down there with my treasure,buried till hell froze over.
