It was not until a late hour on the night following
that of Hernando's departure from the
presence of Guarica, who was now far more
seriously alarmed at what she never doubted
to be an attempt, on Herreiro's part, to execute
his deadly menace, than she had been at his
outrage towards herself, that Orozimbo returned
from Caonabo's council, heated, and out of
breath, as if he had run hard; and somewhat
fatigued, but with an air of high enthusiasm
and excitement, such as before she had never
seen in her brother's features. So much, however,
was she engrossed with the thoughts of
what had, the previous night, befallen her—
proving as it did, beyond a doubt, the implacable
and fiendish malice of Don Guzman, and filling
her with the wildest apprehensions for her beloved
Hernando's safety—that she paid fair less
attention to the manner or appearance of her
brother, than under any other circumstances she
would have done. Eagerly, and with a vehement
rapidity of speech, singularly at variance
with the calm and almost inanimate tranquillity
of her usual demeanor, she related to
Orozimbo, without remarking the absent and
distracted expression with which he listened to
her, the wondrous attempt on her life and that
of De Leon.

If she was not surprised, however, at the
vacancy of his look, as she began her narrative,
she was indeed astonished, although
she well knew the excitability of his nature,
at the tremendous burst of passion with
which he replied to her last words.

“I thank the Great Spirit,” he cried, springing
to his feet, and shaking his hand furious
ly aloft, “I thank the Great Spirit that it is
so! This, this alone was needful to banish
the last throb of compunection, to extinguish
the last spark of mercy or of friendship in
my soul. Ha! ha! It is well, very well!
He would have slain thee? Ha! let him
look to himself, now, dog and villain. Now
am I all the Charib; now am I all my country's!
Give me my arms, give me my arms,
Guarica, I am but wasting time, when time
is most precious. Give me my helm of tiger
skin—give me the golden buckler, the strong
war-club of my father; never yet was it
brandished in more just or holy cause; give
me—”

“Hold! Orozimbo,” exclaimed the lovely
girl, now terrified by his continued vehemence,
“what mean you, brother? For
what should I give you arms? Are you
mad, that you dream—you, you alone, of
seeking out this Spaniard in his guarded
fortress. Why, boy, the very sentinels
would spurn you from their gates!”

“Will they? ha! will they? Will the
two paltry sentinels who stand beside their
empty cannon, spurn back unconquered
Caonabo? Let them look, I say, let them
now look to themselves, these ravishing
and murderous Spaniards. By the great
gods! they shall learn, and that ere to-morrow's
dawn, that it is one thing to strain
in the hug of an Indian warrior, panting for
vengeance and arthirst for blood, and another
to dally in the soft arms of an Indian
maiden!”

“Brother, what mean you? Brother,
brother, what fearful words are these—
what frantic meaning do they bear!”

“Ask me not, ask me not, Guarica; these
are no times for foolish thoughts or girlish
councils. Give me my arms, I say; let me
begone; give me my arms!”

And with the words, he seized Hernando's
bugle from the wall, and, springing to
the window, blew a long thrilling blast,
which was answered on the instant by the
dull roar of a dozen conch-shells, sounding
the Indian war-note everywhere through the
mighty forest.

“There is your answer, Guarica—the
souls of a thousand warriors, the bravest
of the brave, are alive, are burning in those
war-notes. Give me my arms. I say before
to-morrow's day-break, there shall be
no more Isabella; by the gods! no more
Spaniards!”

But as he spoke she threw herself at his
feet, clung to his knees, watered his feet with
her tears; she called on him by every tenderest
pledge, invoked him by every dearest
name, reminded him of every fondest memory,
implored him by the soul of her gallant
father, by the love of their dead mother

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

—implored him for her sake—for her sake,
whom that dying mother had confided to his
charge—if he would not see her die broken-hearted
at his knees, to forego, to forget his
fearful purpose, to desert the disastrous combination.

It was long, very long, ere she succeeded
in the least in bending him; he was intractable,
fierce, resolute. The last worst outrage
had maddened him. It was long ere
he would listen in the least to the voice of
nature, much less to the words of reason.
But at last nature did prevail, and old affection;
his heart melted, and he raised her
from the ground and kissed her, and mixed
his tears with hers. But even when this
step was gained, she had yet much to do,
ere she could win him to her wishes. Pride
now forbade him to desert the expedition in
which he had enlisted with such zealous
ardor—to forsake the comrades to whom
his faith was pledged, to prove disloyal to
the monarch to whom he insisted that he
owed allegiance. But Guarica's mind, although
a woman's, and a young lovely
woman's too, was of the firmer and the
sterner stuff, and in the end it conquered.
Reason and wisdom were on her side, and
for once reason and wisdom carried the day,
over passion and brute violence.

She showed him, in clear colors, the hopelessness,
the madness of the expedition; she
proved to him, beyond the power of paradox
to resist, that even if in the first their efforts
should be crowned with success, the end
would but be the more disastrous to the rash
patriots, and to their country.

“Even,” she said, “even if you should
carry Isabella—if you should, as you tell me
you have sworn to do, burn it with fire, and
raze it to the very earth, till not one stone
remain upon another—even if you should
drown the smoking embers of the last Spanish
dwelling with the life-blood of the last
Spanish soldier, what will all this avail you?
Is not the great, the God-like, the invincible
and irresistible Columbus, even now flying
hitherward on the wings of the very wind to
which you propose to fling your banners of
defiance? Does he not bring with him a
fleet, a whole fleet, freighted with steel-clad
men, invulnerable, and with no mimic thunderbolts?
And will not he avenge—merciful
as he is, and good, and gracious—will
not he exact awful retribution for the destruction
of his comrades? And who dare
hope to succeed, to strive even, against the
unconquered, the unconquerable admiral?
Spare them, my brother, spare—I will not
say your sister, but your king, your countrymen,
your country!”

“But how?” replied Orozimbo, mightily
moved both by her arguments and her pas
sion, “how shall I dare be a deserter—a
traitor to my tribe—a recreant to my honor?
How, if I do so, shall I ever dare again to
show my face before my tribemen?—to take
my seat in the council of the chiefs? No!
sister, no! it is too late—too late! and if
you be i' the right, as now I believe you are,
to-morrow will be a day fatal both to us and
to our invaders. I would—I would, indeed,
that I had told you of our plans heretofore,
while there was yet the time to listen to your
arguments—but it is now too late, and I must
on.”

“It is never too late to repent, brother,”
answered the eager and excited girl—“never
too late to exchange evil for good counsel,
madness for wisdom, crime for virtue. And
it is evil counsel, it is madness—yes! Orozimbo,
it is crime; knowingly to rush headlong
on destruction; nor to destroy yourself
alone, but to involve hundreds in one common,
hopeless, unnecessary ruin. Listen to
me, and believe me, brother. You may think—
you do think, doubtless, that I am but a
love-sick girl, pleading the cause of selfish
passion, terrified for her lover's safety, and
willing to give up all beside, friends, kinsmen,
country, so that my senseless love for
this stranger of a hostile race may be gratified.
No! by my Christian faith, no! by
the Christian's God, whom he has taught me
to adore! it is not so. Were there a reasonable
hope that permanent success could follow
your bold exploit—were there one chance in
the thousand that our country could be once
more free—that the invader's foot-prints
could be erased for ever from our virgin
shores—that no white face should ever more
be seen in our happy fields—then, Orozimbo,
then would I cry forward! forward! although
your first step should be planted on my breaking
heart, and the next on my Hernando's
prostrate head! Then would my voice be
the first and the loudest to cheer you to the
fray, as it is now the only one to warn you.”

“And why not,”—asked her brother,
gloomily, as he sat with his head buried
between his hands—“Why is it not so
now?”

“You know why not,” she answered,
firmly. “You know that, were every white
man swept, to-night, from the face of our
fair island, thousands and tens of thousands
would spring up in their places. When was
the Spaniard's footstep ever checked by the
fear of peril?—when was his lust of gold
every repressed by thoughts of the risk incurred
in snatching? Their race is as numerous
as the green leaves of the forest, or as
the sands on the sea-shore—in fierceness
they are the tiger's equals, in wisdom they
are almost gods! Look at the beasts which
they have trained to fight their battles: the

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

glorious war-horse, with his eye kindling to
the trumpet; the dreadful blood-hound, more
wily and more savage than the jaguar; look
at their bright, impenetrable armor, from
which your strongest shafts rebound, as from
the earthfast rock; look at their cannonshot,
more perilous to man than beaven's own
thunders. And then think—think if a few,
a mere handful of adventurers—for such
they were who first landed on our shores—
if they have subjugated half, aye! four-fifths
of our nation, and that for the mere love of
gold and of dominion, think what their nation
would effect in its majesty and might,
roused to revenge the blood of its slaughtered
sons—roused to uphold and vindicate the
honor of its name! No! brother, no! when
the first little band stepped forth from their
winged canoes upon our hospitable shores,
had our people then broken down upon them
with the spear and mace, the death-drum and
the battle-cry—had they all perished to a
man, and none returned across the wide,
wide sea, to tell their comrades' fate—then
might we have been saved from the white
man's dominion. But the very day that
saw the first caravella spread its wings to
the homeward breeze, that day, I tell you,
riveted on our necks a yoke that must endure
for ever. I tell you their mariners, their
very dumb and senseless galleys, know the
path to and fro the trackless deep, as surely
as you know the wood-tracks of our native
island. For every Spanish breath you quench,
a hundred, and a hundred times a hundred,
will be quenched, and for ever, of our own;
for every drop of Spanish blood you shed,
rivers shall flow of ours. The white man
has an eye that descries everything, though
seas may roll between; an arm that strikes
a thousand leagues aloof; a hand that, when
it once hath closed upon its prey, never foregoes
its hold! I have spoken!—but I look
not that you will believe me! Go! pour
your naked hundreds against the mail clad
cavaliers; go! dash your bare breasts on
their walls of granite; go! and expose your
mortal flesh to the blasting breath of their
cannon: and then, when all is lost, when,
hunted to the last verge of the precipice,
bayed by their unrelenting hounds, cut down
by their resistless steel,—no longer even to
be saved as the remnant of a people—ye
call upon the earth to yawn and swallow ye,
upon the rocks to fall and cover ye—and
earth and rocks are pitiless as your avenging
foemen—then, I say, then remember the
words of her whom you murdered—of your
sister, your only and fond sister, who told
you all these things, how they should be,
and you heard not her warning, but laughed
her words to scorn, and murdered her—the
last of your unhappy race!”

“Murdered you!” he exclaimed, starting
to his feet—“murdered you, Guarica!” and
his dark features were convulsed, and his
limbs trembled with the violence of his contending
passions.

“Ay, Orozimbo! murdered; for think you
that I could, even if I would, survive him—
and that, too, knowing him slaughtered by a
brother!”

“But I have charged my warriors,” he exclaimed,
vehemently—“but I have drawn an
oath from Caonabo, to spare him in the
strife, and, the war ended, to treat him as a
friend and kinsman.”

“And how long would your charge be
heeded?—until the first frenzy of the strife
had turned their blood to liquid fire. And
how long would Caonabo's oath be kept, after
its end was answered? Tush! brother,
tush! If you can so deceive yourself, so
can you not deceive me; moreover, think you
Hernando de Leon is the man to be spared—
to spare himself in such a conflict? Think
you Hernando de Leon is the man to survive
the extermination of his comrades, and to
clasp in his own the reeking hands of their
butchers! If he were so, he might seek
some European girl to share his life, and his
infamy—an Indian maid would scorn him.
No! Orozimbo, follow out your plans, and
mark what I tell you: when the last blow is
stricken, when the last heroes die around the
flag-staff of their country's honor, there will
be found my slaughtered love, and there will
I die on his body. Go! boy; we meet on
earth no more. Go, brother, to your duty; I
have mine, likewise?”

She ended; but long before she ended, her
soul-fraught eloquence, the fire and pathos
that were blended in her words, and above
all, the truth of what she said, had won back
the ascendency which she had ever had over
her brother's spirit—the ascendency of moral
strength over physical power—of mind over
matter. It was now his turn to cast himself
at his sister's feet, but, ere he could
do so, she had caught him in her arms,
and clasped him to her heart, and covered
him with the chaste kisses of a sister's holy
love.

“Guarica!” he said, “dear, dear Guarica,
you have prevailed. Do with me as you
will; I am your slave—the creature of your
bidding. Only think for me, and say how I
shall save my honor!”

“Go to your uncle!” she cried impetuously.
“Go straight to the wise and noble
Caonabo, and say to him as I have said to
thee”—

“It would avail me nothing; he would
either strike me to the earth, or drive me in
scorn from his presence: he will endure no
opposition to his will, and hear no reason.

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

As well may you hope to turn the sun from
his course, as Caonabo from his project.”

“Then mark me, brother. This plot of
the great cacique depends, you tell me, on
his finding the fortress unprepared, and the
guards negligent and off their duty?”

“Aye!” he replied, “but what of that?”

“Ask me no further. Only observe what
I say: all shall go well yet. At what time
is your onslaught appointed to begin?”

“Soon after day-break”—

“Then go: join your leaders—take your
arms; lead your followers hence; but be sure
that you lead all of them: leave not a soul
behind you to play the spy on me. Where
do your warriors muster?”

“By the spring, which they call the `hunter's
rest,' in the woodlands, within a mile of
Isabella.”

“I know—I know,” replied Guarica;
“then go, brother, go: be of good cheer; all
shall go well yet. Ask me no questions;
but he sure that you send scouts to mark if
the Spaniards be so unprepared as you imagine,
ere you proceed to the attack.”

“So it is ordered, sister. But you mean
not”—

“Ask me no questions,” she replied,
smiling; “for I shall answer none. Whate'er
I do, that will I do honestly and wisely,
and it were better for all causes that you
should know naught else. Kiss me, dear
brother, and farewell; it is long, long past
midnight. Farewell, go to your duty, and
remember”—

“Never will I forget, Guarica—never will
I forget what you have said to me this night.
By all the gods! I swear to do, henceforth,
whatever you command me.”

And with the words, he seized the arms
which she gave him hastily, clasped her once
more in his arms, and, calling to his Indian
followers, who were collected under arms
already, at a short distance from the building,
to follow him at their speed, he set of at a
long, swinging run, over the open meadow,
and through the deep woodland, towards the
forest rendezvous.

Scarcely was her brother out of sight, before
the girl, who had eagerly watched his
departure, and satisfied herself that none of
his myrmidons remained behind, applied herself
hastily to collect some articles of clothing
more suitable, as it appeared, than those she
wore, for a long and toilsome walk through
the forest. She bound a pair of stronger
sandals on her feet; she girded up her dress
succinctly, in a form not unlike that of the
graceful Doric chiton, as represented in the
statues of Diana. She took in her hand a
long, light, reed javelin, with a flint head:
it may have been as a staff to support her
footsteps; it might have been as a weapon
of defence; and with no further preparation,
alone and unprotected, save by her own high
resolution—by that innate and noble daring
which springs from the consciousness of
chastity, and innocence, and truth—that
glorious confidence of incorrupt virginity,
concerning which

“It is said that a lion will turn and flee
From a maid, in the pride of her purity.”

Full of her noble purpose, inspired by
high benevolence and immortal love with
strength beyond her powers, she struggled
insensible to fatigue, and superior to weak
terrors—but all would have been in vain, for
the day was beginning to show the first pale
tokens of its coming in the far east, while
she was yet many miles aloof from the
Spanish fortress, and cold apprehension near
akin to despair, was usurping rapidly the
place of high hope and confidence, when
suddenly, as she turned an angle of the
blind deer-path she was treading, her eye
was attracted and astonished by a clear light,
burning purely in the deepest part of the
forest.

Holding her very breath for fear its slightest
aspiration might betray her, and treading
stealthily upon the fallen leaves, she stole
towards it, and, ere she had gone many steps,
a strange sight met her eyes.

In a small sheltered glade of the forest,
stretched on the ground, with their watch
cloaks round them, in deep slumber, their
long lances planted erect by every sleeper's
head, and their bright burnished helmets at
their sides, lay ten Spanish cavaliers; their
tall chargers with their steel-plated demipiques,
champons upon their frontlets, and
iron poitrels on their breasts, stood round
them, linked by their chain bridles, each
horse hard by his lord.

But at a little distance from the rest one
man kept watch—but kept watch rather as

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

a cowled monk than as a dauntless warrior—
for he knelt on both his knees, with his
hands clasped in earnest supplication before
an exquisitely painted picture of the virgin,
which he had hung, by a little chain attached
to it, from the hilt of his dagger driven deep
into the stem of a gigantic palm tree. It
was before this picture that burned, in a
small lamp of richly embossed silver, fed
with some odoriferous oil, the strange clear
light which she had seen through the dim
aisles of the forest. It was a wild and singular
scene, and worthy of the pencil of
Salvator. The sweet white silvery light
streaming upwards, and playing over the
heavenly features of the Madonna, which
seemed to smile in the focus of its consecrated
radiance, thence flashing on the dark
enthusiastic features of the kneeling warrior,
dancing upon his waving plume and
polished armor, and thence flickering less
distinctly over the figures of his sleeping
comrades, and over the large limbs of the
barbed chargers, which looked even larger
and more formidable when half seen in the
dim and hazy lustre of the distance.

The warrior who was kneeling at his
orisons in that wild place, and at that untimely
hour, was a man not above the middle
height, perhaps rather under it, but very
powerfully built, with broad shoulders and
thin flanks, and a chest singularly prominent
and deep; his arms were long and muscular,
and his legs, although slightly bowed outward,
perhaps from constant exercise on
horseback, were unusually strong and
sinewy.

From head to heel he was sheathed in a
full panoply of Spanish steel, richly wrought
with gold arabesques and bosses; his casque
with its tall crimson plume, which indeed
he rarely laid aside, was on his head, although
the avantaille was raised, displaying
his bold manly features. Gilt spurs of
knighthood was buckled on his heels over
his greaves and shoes of burnished steel,
and from a scarf of rich crimson silk hung
his long two-edged broadsword.

Such was Alonzo de Ojeda, the wildest
and most daring spirit, the most fiery warrior,
the most perfect knight of the bold
band which had left the gay courts of their
native land for the fierce forays and the wild
adventures of the new western world.

Fervently as he was praying to the especial
object of his chivalric and imaginative
worship, his ear, accustomed to every
sound, however slight or distant, of the forest,
caught instantly the light tread of the
Indian maiden, and recognised it as instantly
for a human footstep.

He started to his feet, and cried aloud—
“Ho! who goes there?”

And ere the last words had left his lips,
all his brave partisans were afoot, and on
the alert around him.

“If you be friendly,” he continued,
“draw near fearlessly; if foes, be on your
guard!” and then turning towards his nearest
comrade, “It was a woman's tread I
heard, if I mistake not—”

He had said but thus far, when Guarica
stepped forth modestly but firmly into the
circle of light which the lamp cast for a
little space around the armed group, saying—

“It is, Sir Knight, indeed a woman—but
as she is so fortunate as to recognise Alonzo
de Ojeda, she knows full well that she
is as safe in his presence in the wild forest,
alone, and unprotected, as she would be
surrounded by a hundred of her tribes-men!”

“Lady,” replied Alonzo, “for lady you
must needs be, to understand so truly the
spirit and devotion of a true cavalier, you
do me, I am proud to say, no more than
justice. But what are your commands at
this dead hour? or wherefore have you
sought me thus strangely, and how have you
found me?

“I sought you not, Don Alonzo,” answered
the Charib maiden; “I sought you not,
but right fortunate is it that without seeking
I have found you, for life and death is on
my haste, and the distance, which I cannot
accomplish even in hours, your coursers will
make good in minutes.”

“Your words are full of emphasis,” answered
Ojeda, gravely, “and you speak as
one used to authority, and accustomed to
command. May I know with whom I am
conversing?”

“My name will avail you little, senor.
It is, I think, unknown to you—I am called
Guarica; but if my name be strange, my
lineage is well known to you—I am the
niece and adopted daughter of queen Anacaona.”

“Of the good queen—the friend of the
Admiral? Say then, dear lady, what is your
errand? If done it may be at all, trust me it
shall be done right speedily.”

“It must be so done—if it be done at all.
But it must be said in your private ear. It
is too secret, too full of dread import, to be
spoken even before your chosen comrades.”

And with the words she motioned him to
move a little way apart, and he followed her
with an air of deep respect, which, however
different from the mode of treatment
most of his countrymen would have vouchsafed
to an Indian girl, was perfectly in
keeping with the grand though perhaps
exaggerated character of his knight errantry.

Although, therefore, he moved out of earshot
of his brother partisans, he did not
suffer her to go so far from them that any

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

motion on the part of either should be unseen
by all; for with a delicate compunction,
most honorable to his feelings, he was
resolved that her reputation should in no
wise suffer by her noble confidence in his
integrity.

The other Spaniards, who awaited in
great wonder and some surprise the issue
of this strange conference, soon saw by the
extreme surprise which every gesture of
Alonzo indicated, that the girl's news must
be indeed important. They could perceive
that he asked two or three questions, which
were answered readily, and it seemed satisfactorily,
for after a minute or two, Alonzo
raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it respectfully—
saying,

“Thanks—thanks! eternal thanks!—
This never shall be forgotten—never! and
be not alarmed, there is ample time!”

Then turning to his men, he cried in quick,
commanding tones—

“To horse! to horse, hastily!”

But even in the hurry and confusion which
succeeded, confusion tending unto order,
they could see that Guarica again spoke to
him even more urgently than before, and
they heard him answer,

“I promise you—I promise you, upon the
honor of a cavalier—upon my honor, it shall
be as you wish. Unless they return again,
there shall be no bloodshed.”

And again kissing her hand, he hastily put
up his picture of the virgin and his hallowed
lamp in his knapsack, where at all times
and in all expeditions he ever carried them,
mounted his war-horse, thundered his orders
in a voice meant by nature for command, and
spurring his horse to the gallop, rode furiously,
straight as the bird flies through the
forest, to the gates of Isabella.

Don Guzman de Herreiro had just ridden
out of sight, as Alonzo reached the drawbridge,
which he found actually lowered,
with but some three or four half drunken
soldiers lounging about the gate-house. But
ere he had been within the walls ten minutes,
the drums beat to arms, the great alarm bell
tolled, the gates were barricaded, and the
bridges raised; cannon were loaded, and extra
ammunition served to the cannoneers.
The Spanish flag was hoisted, and the whole
garrison was mustered in full war array upon
the guarded ramparts.

These preparations had been made about
an hour, when two or three Indians were
seen lurking about the edge of the nearest
woodland, and their appearance being hailed
by a flourish of trumpets, and a show of
soldiers manœuvering upon the esplanade
above the gates, they instantly retired, and
nothing was heard or seen that day from the
walls of Isabella to justify the suddenness
of Alonzo de Ojeda's arrival, and the alarm
he had occasioned.