Day after day passed onward, but no more
did Guarica hear or see of Don Guzman de
Herreiro; for not only did he not again venture
to approach her forest home, but not once
did he quit the guarded precincts of the fortress.
And well was it for him he did not.

Perhaps, indeed, it was a secret instinct that
taught him to conceal himself within the barrack
square, a consciousness that wrong, so
deadly as he had mediated to the forest princess,
could not be offered with impunity. Bold
as he was, and daring in the battle field, perhaps
his heart failed him when he thought of
lurking foes concealed in every brake, waiting
with all the deadly patience of Indian revenge,
to wing the fatal arrow to his heart—and well
was it for him.

For from the very hour in which Orozimbo
had tracked him to the fortress, saved only by
the fleetness of his charger, from that very
hour not ten steps could he have made beyond
the drawbridge, without encountering death
beyond a peradventure. Day and night,
fair and foul, the wakeful Charibs lay concealed
around; never was there a moment
when one at least of Orozimbo's men was not
within easy arrow range of the castle gates.
One watching while another slept, one feeding
while another fasted, constantly, resolutely,
was the ward kept—the watch and ward of
vengeance.

Yet with such skilful subtilty, with such
deep craft was it all ordered, that though Herreiro
might have met his spies on the look
out, he could have learned or suspected nothing.

The watcher now would be a solitary fisherman
playing his scoop-net at the basin's
mouth; now a wild hunter offering his game
for sale to the officers; now a group of old Indians
with palm and wine and fruits, and now
a knot of striplings playing or wrestling on the
green before the esplanade; but each and all
with bow and quiver at his back, eyeing furtively
but keenly the form of every passer, each
and all ready and alert to avenge the insult
offered to their young princess.

Nor while the gates of Isabella were thus
formidably guarded and beset, was Guarica
again left unprotected or alone. Whenever
Orozimbo was abroad, and he was now abroad
more frequently than ever, for it appeared that
something new and strange was in the wind,
armed musters being held almost nightly of
Caonabo's vassals, whenever Orozimbo was
abroad, two or three stalwart Indians might be
seen at some point or other within sight and
earshot of the cottage, while others were on the
scout constantly among the woods, through
which a foe must pass to reach the dwelling
of Guarica.

That something was on foot among the
savages, as they were still termed by the
Spaniards, could not be doubted. The great
Lord of the Golden House had mustered all his
warriors; and many subjects of the four other
independent caciques of the Island, who, more
timid or less patriotic than the heroic Caonabo,
shrank from collision with the whites, were
gathered to the banners of the champion of his
people.

This was especially the case with the tribemen
of the queen Anacaona. Invariably the
friend of the white men herself, she had inculcated
the like pacific notions into the minds of
her kinsmen; so that Orozimbo and Guarica
had been scarce second to their aunt in good
will to the pale invaders.

The fiery blood of the young Indian had
been, however, so thoroughly aroused by the
atrocious outrage offered to his sister, that he
had joined heart and hand with his warlike
kinsman, who had determined on a simultaneous
onslaught upon every Spanish post, previous
to the return of the great Admiral. Not
a few of the best and boldest of his tribes were
united with him, but knowing well the predilection
of his aunt and sister for the European

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

colonists, all had been carefully concealed from
them. While Orozimbo satisfied his conscience
as to the consequences of his conduct on his
sister's fate, by charging all his followers to respect
the person of Hernando, and preserve him
at all hazards, and by obtaining a pledge of his
safety from the great cacique.

Such was the state of things when De Leon
returned from his mission, late in the afternoon
of the seventh day from his parting with Guarica.
The plans of Caonabo were all laid and
determined; but the day and hour on which the
attack should be made he still kept buried in
his own bosom, lest once known to his people,
treason, or drunkenness—for, since the coming
of the white men this curse likewise was entailed
upon the Indian—or careless indiscretion
might betray it to the foe. Even Orozimbo
knew no more than the meanest of his tribes-men;
night after night every inferior chief was
ordered to hold all his men in readiness, though
none knew for what; and night after night, up
to the evening of Hernando's coming, each had
received a mandate instructing him to disband
his people until the following moon-rise.

Scarce had Hernando disembarked from his
caravella, ere he hurried to the quarters of Don
Guzman, expecting to receive a solution of all
his doubts and surmises. But when he reached
his door, he was, to his extreme astonishment,
refused admittance, on the pretence that
Herreiro had been very ill and confined to his
bed during the whole period of his, Hernando's
absence, and that the leech had forbidden
strictly that any person should have access to
him.

Frustrated thus, he inquired of the servant
whether the packet he had left on the morning
of his departure was delivered—to which question
the man answered promptly, as it afterwards
appeared truly, that it was—that he gave
it to his master, on his return from hunting, the
same day on which he received it; although,
he added, that he knew not whether Don Guz
man had read it, having been taken ill
within an hour or two of his return, in consequence,
it was supposed, of a sun-stroke.

Having exhausted thus every source of information
that was open to him, Hernando,
after making his report to the commandant,
and receiving his conge for the night, ordered
his horse to be prepared immediately, and rode
away into the forest, taking his bloodhounds
with him.

In the meantime the officers were revelling
in the mess-room, with cards, and dice, and
wine, and dark-haired Indian women; the sentinels
were slumbering or drinking at their
posts; the cannon were unloaded; the walls
almost unguarded. Riot and luxury within,
and relaxed discipline; and without armed
foes, thirsty for blood and vengeance.

So stood affairs when Hernando galloped
from the gates, fearless and free of heart, and
full of bright and gay anticipation. The very
news he had received from Herreiro's servant
resassured him—for it had not occurred to him
to doubt its truth. So that, secure in his imagination
that Guarica could have been troubled
by no fresh intrusion, he rode joyously along
the forest track, in all the confidence of happy
and successful love.

He was surprised a little, it is true, at meeting,
three times on his road, an armed Indian,
apparently on the scout; such a thing never
having previously happened in all the times
he had come and gone to and fro. But the
men, all of whom happened to be acquainted
with his person, spoke to him pleasantly, and
passed on their way; and Hernando, indeed,
almost forgot that he had seen them, until,
when he saw Guarica, and she related to him,
amid tears of gratitude and joy, all that had
happened, he perceived and appreciated the
object of the wise precaution.

Fierce and tremendous was his indignation,
as, without a touch of fear at the foul menace
of Herreiro, the fair girl related to him the
whole of that thrilling scene; but so much
more were his love and admiration kindled towards
the heroic maiden, that his ire smouldered
in his bosom as quietly as though he
had entertained no such feeling. So much so
that Guarica herself almost wondered that,
with so much cause for violent and quick resentment,
her lover's mood should be softer,
calmer, and more tranquil than its wont.

Little she knew that the current of fierce
wrath, when stillest, is ever deadliest and
deepest. Little she fancied that Hernando's
spirits were so gay and lightsome, his manner
soft and unconcerned, because he saw his
course of vengeance plain before him—because
he knew that on the morrow his enemy must
pay his debt even unto the uttermost farthing.

After a little while, as is sometimes the case
with all of us, when our spirits are enkindled
and our sensibilities aroused far beyond their
wont, the atmosphere of the airy room in which
the lovers sat appeared to them confined and
oppressive, their souls seemed to want scope to
expand—they panted for the free air of the
wide, starry heavens, and forth they strolled,
arm-in-arm, through the quiet moonlight, across
the beautiful savannah—across the little brook,
dry-shod upon the snow-white stepping-stones—
and thence along the forest's edge whence
first Hernando had beheld her.

That, since their loves had grown into maturity,
had been to them a hallowed place—
aud on the streamlet's bank, just the spot
where he had forced his Andalusian steed to
leap it, De Leon's hands had built a rustic seat,
beneath the shelter of a huge palm tree, and
close to the verge of the unbroken forest.
Thither they bent their steps, led by some secret

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

mutual impulse, and there they sat down, side
by side, in happiness too deep to find vent in
many words.

It was Guarica who spoke first, and when
she did, it was of the subject that was ever
foremost in her mind, the villany and treason
of Don Guzman. But she struck no responsive
string in Hernando's mind; and he spoke
wide of the mark, making some passing observation
touching the beauty of the night.

“But let us speak,” she said, “of this Herreiro:
think you that he will dare attempt his
menaced vengeance?”

“His vengeance, paltry knave!” said Hernando,
scornfully. “No! but let him dread
mine—for it shall find him out before he dream
of it; nor shall his feigned distemper save him!
But let us think of him no further. He is not
worth one instant's care. The viper is but
perilous so long as we suspect him not; once
seen, he is so harmless, that it is scarce worth
the while to crush him, and, for the rest, it will
be but a little space—a little space, which we
must bear with patience—scarcely a week, I
trust, my own and best beloved, before the
good and great Columbus shall return; and
then, then, sweet one, there will be an end to
all your doubts, anxieties, and fears. He is the
best, the noblest, the most just of men. He is
my friend, too, and a tried one. He once returned,
I will avow at once to him my love for
my Guarica; his consent it is meet that we
should have before our union, and of it I am
certain! Then—then, thou shalt be mine, for
ever mine, in the sight of men, as thou art now
in the sight of Heaven and all its angels!”

“My own Hernando!” was her sole answer,
for her heart swelled as she spoke, and
her passion was too strong for words, and two
large diamond tears collected slowly on the
long, silky fringes of her eyelids, and hanging
there like dew-drops on the violet's petal, slid
slowly down her soft, transparent cheeks.

“Tears—tears, Guarica!” cried the lover,
half reproachfully. “Can it be, can it be, that
thou shalt doubt me?—me, who have never
asked the slightest freedom—never essayed the
smallest and most innocent familiarity; me,
who would rather die—die, not on earth only,
but for all eternity, than call up one chaste
blush upon those maiden cheeks—than wake
one doubt in that pure heart—than print one
stain upon the whiteness of that virgin mind!
Can it be—”

“No! no!” exclaimed the girl, panting with
eagerness to interrupt him, for he had spoken,
hitherto, with such impetnous haste, that she
had vainly sought to answer him. “No! no!
Sooner would I doubt Heaven than thee. Hernando.
They were tears, not of sorrow, not
of doubt, but of pure, heart-felt joy! I know
thou art the very soul of honor—I know thou
wouldst ask nothing of thy Guarica that it
would not be her pride, her joy, her duty, to
bestow. It was but joy, dear, dear Hernando,
to think that we would so soon be united beyond
the power of man to part us.”

Even as she spoke, while her cheek almost
touched the face of her young lover,—for, in
the intense excitement of the moment, she had
leaned forward, clasping Hernando's hand in
both her own, and watering it with her tears,—
a sharp, keen twang, mixed with a clash, as
if of steel, was heard behind them; a long,
dark streak seemed to glare through the narrow
space between their heads, with a low,
whizzing sound, and on the instant a bolt, or
arrow, stood quivering in the stem of a palm-tree
opposite.

To spring upon his feet, to whirl his long,
two-edged Toledo from the scabbard, to dart,
with a loud shout, into the thicket, calling
upon his trusty hounds, which, quite unconscious
of any peril, were slumbering at Guarica's
feet, to whom they had become familiar
guardians, was but an instant's work to the
young and fiery Hidalgo. For at least ten
minutes' space, he was absent from the Indian
maiden; who, trembling with apprehension for
the safety of him whom she had learned to
love far more than life itself, with every tinge
of color banished by mortal terror from her
features, awaited his return. With every
sense on the alert, eye, ear, and spirit on the
watch, she stood in terrible excitement. She
heard him crashing through the tangled brake;
she heard his loud voice cheering the eager
blood-hounds to track out the footsteps of his
hidden foeman; but no bay of the sagacious
animals, no clash of steel or answering defiance,
fell on her anxious ear. His search was
vain—his anxious labor fruitless—no fraying
of the interlaced and thorny branches showed
where the dastardly assassin had forced a passage
for his retreating footsteps—no print in
the clayey soil revealed where he had trodden;
and, stranger yet, the keen scent of the sagacious
dogs detected not the slightest taint upon
the earth, or on the dewy herbage, although they
quested to and fro, three hundred yards, at
least, in circuit, around the tree wherein the
well-aimed arrow stood—sure evidence of the
murderer's intent. He returned, baulked and
disappointed, to Guarica; big drops of icy perspiration
standing, like bubbles, on his high,
clear forehead, and his whole frame trembling
with the agitatìon of strong excitement.

“By Him who made me,” he exclaimed, as
he returned to her, “this is most marvellous!
there is not, nor hath been, within two hundred
yards of us, a human being since we have sat
here—if I may trust the sight of mine own
eyes, or, what is truer far, the scent of my
good hounds! Yet here,” he added, as he tore
from the stem of the tall palm tree the short,
massive bolt, with its four-cornered barbed

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

steel head, “here is the evidence that one—
and that, too, a Spaniard—hath been, or now
is, close beside us. Come, dearest, come, let
us leave this perilous spot. By Heaven! but
it is wondrous strange!”

In silence—for the girl was too full of terror,
the cavalier, of dark and anxious thought,
to enter into converse—he led her homeward.
Across the bright savannah, gleaming in the
moonlight, they reached, ere long, the portico
of her loved home, and there, after a tender
parting, Hernando vaulted into the saddle of
his fiery Andalusian, whistled his faithful
blood-hounds to his heel, and dashed away, at
a furious gallop, towards the fortress of his
unfriendly countrymen. Eager, still, to discover,
if so it might be, something of him who
had so ruthlessly aimed the murderer's shaft
that night, Hernando rode directly to the spot
where he had sat with Guarica when the fell
missile was discharged: he saw the grass betraying,
by its bruised and prostrate blades, the
very spot by which they had been sitting; but
all was still and lonely. Onward he went
across the very ground which he had searched
so carefully scarce half an hour before, and,
ere he had traversed fifty paces, both bloodhounds
challenged fiercely. Calling them instantly
to heel, the cavalier alighted, bound his
hot war-house to a tree, and eagerly scanned
the soil. At the first glance, deep printed in
the yielding mould, he found the clear print of
a Spanish buskin, furnished with a long,
knightly spur. To follow the trace backward
was his first impulse; and scarce three minutes
were consumed, before he tracked it to a tall
and shadowy oak, the bark of which, scarred
and defaced, showed that some person had,
not long before, both climbed it and descended.

“Ha!” he exclaimed, striking his breast
with his clinched hand, “ha! idiot that I was,
who thought not of this! It matters not, however;
by God! it matters not; for right soon
will I have him! Forward, good hounds,”
he added, “forward, hark, halloa, ho! hark,
forward!” And the vexed woodlands rang to
the deep-mouthed dogs, and the hard gallop of
the hunter. They reached the open ground, a
league of forest having been already passed,
and the hounds, for a moment, were at fault.

Springing again to the earth, Hernando easily
discovered, by the prints in the soil, that here
the fugitive had taken horse—having, it would
seem, left his charger under the keeping of a
menial, while prosecuting his foul enterprise;
for henceforth two broad horse-tracks might be
seen running distinctly over the bare savannah
homeward. Laying the hounds upon the
horse-track, the cavalier again re-mounted, and
the fresh dew aiding the scent, away they
drove, at a pace almost unexampled, through
brake and bush, over the open plain, athwart
the murky covert—hill and hollow vanished
beneath their fiery speed, rock and tree glanced
by and disappeared, so furious was their pace;
the deepest torrent turned him not, nor the
most perilous leap deterred him—for the most
fiery, the most constant, the most pervading of
all human passions—deadly revenge, was burning
his heart's core, turning the healthful currents
of his blood to streams of fiery lava.

The deadest hour of night had long been
passed already, when he dashed forth upon
that desperate race; the pale cold light of morning
was streaning, broad but still, over the
ramparts of the Spanish fortress, when Don
Hernando de Leon pulled up his foaming steed
before the drawbridge. Early, however, and
untimely as was the hour, men were abroad
already. A mounted servitor, in livery of
Isabel and silver, riding a coal-black jennet,
and leading by the bridle-rein a tall bay charger,
trapped and housed richly with the same colors,
was retiring from the gates, which were just
closing, toward the barrack stables. Towards
this steed, jaded and spent with toil, and all
embossed with sweat and foam-flakes, and
galled and bleeding at the flanks from cruel and
incessant spurring, the savage blood-hounds,
still in full cry, dashed without check or stint,
and would have pulled the bay horse down had
not the stern voice of their master checked
them. He rode up to the groom, and in a deep
voice, calm, slow, and perfectly unmoved, demanded,
“Whose charger?”

Without reply the servitor was hastening
away, when he asked once again, in fiercer
tones, drawing his dagger as he spoke—

“Whose charger, dog? Speak, or thou
diest! Whose charger? and who hath now
dismounted from him? Not that I need thy
voice to tell me what I already know, but that
I choose to hear my knowledge confirmed by
human words. Whose charger?

“Don Guzman de Herreiro's,” replied the faltering
menial; “he hath even now gone in—
the bridge is not yet lifted.”

“Excellent well!” replied the cavalier, “excellent
well! Mine ancient comrade; excellent
well! My fellow soldier, whose life I
have thrice saved—once from the Moors, amid
the mountain glens of Malaga, once from the
surf, among the dread Antilles, and once here
in this isle of Hispaniola, from the envenomed
arrow of the Charib. Excellent well, Don
Guzman!”

In the meantime dismounting at the gates, he
gave his charger and his hounds to the care of
a favourite domestic who awaited him; and,
with a firm, slow step, crossing the drawbridge,
stopped for a moment to address the
sentinel.

“So,” he said, “old Gaspar, thou keepest
good watch. When went Don Guzman
forth?”

“After we set the watch yestreen, fair sir,”

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

replied the old Castilian, presenting, as he
spoke, his partisan. “Now I bethink me, it
was scarce five minutes after thou didst ride
forth into the forest!”

“And he hath now returned?”

“But now.”

No further words were interchanged; the
young knight slowly passed across the courtyard,
entered the vaulted passage which led
towards the chambers of Don Guzman, paused
at the door, and without one word struck on
the panel one strong blow. A stern voice
from within cried “enter!” And he did enter,
and closed the door behind him, and locked and
double locked it; and though strange sounds
were heard, and fearful voices, about half an
hour passed ere be came forth; and when he
did so, his face, though very stern and calm,
was pale as death; and he retired to his own
quarters without a word to any one.