At last Thompson began to think he had worked them up enough, and he said stern: "'Well, I am disposed to have mercy, and if in half an hour you pay down the sum of five thousand pounds as a ransom for the convent and your wretched lives I will be merciful.' "Then there was a fresh howling.

They swore by all the saints that such a sum as five thousand pounds was never heard of.

Thompson gradually dropped his demands to three thousand; still they swore they hadn't got it, and he said sternly to one of the troopers: "'Ride back and fetch up the regiment which is a mile outside the village.' "Then there was more howling, and at last they offered to give seven hundred pounds, which was all the money which they had in the treasury, and to make it up in precious stones.

After a deal of haggling Thompson consented, and I believe if he had stood out for three times as much he would have got it, for the convent was rich in relics, and no end of precious offerings were stored away in their chests; however, he didn't wish to push matters too far, and in half an hour they brought the money, and a handful of diamonds and rubies, and things they had picked out of their settings in the vases and crucifixes and vestments, and what not.
"We didn't know if they were real or not; but Thompson told them he should give them to a jeweler to value, and if he found they had cheated him by giving him false stones he would come back and hang the lot of them.

So off we rode again.
"When we got back to Lerida we took two or three of the stones to a jeweler and found that they were all right.