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Remember the Rancho Salado and look
yonder!'

That voice, we say, curdled the blood of
the monk.

There, beside him, on the roof-top of the
old mansion of Vera Cruz, rose a sombre
figure, which, in the dim light of the stars,
resembled a phantom rather than a man.

It was some moments ere the monk could
gather nerve to raise his eyes and look upon
the shadowy form. At first he saw only a
tall figure, attired in grey, with a rifle in his
hand, a pale face, encircled by masses of
dark hair, with a long black beard clothing
the lower part of the visage, and descending
to the broad chest.

Then, as he saw more clearly, he beheld
that white forehead, the dark eyebrows, the
aquiline nose, firm mouth—curving with a
smile that was almost Satantic—and a rounded
chin, appearing from masses of black
beard. A frock coat of grey hues, edged on
the skirts with dark fur, and girded by a belt
of black leather, displayed the sinewy proportions
of the stranger. Over his white brow
arose a cap of dark fur, with a single
long and slender feather, quivering in its
front.

`You tremble, Father Pedro,'—the voice
sounded like a death-knell to the monk—
`and yet there is no reason to fear! Come,
while the stars gleam above us, while San
Juan frowns yonder, and the tramp of ten
thousand heretics resound from the sandy
beach. Come, I say, sit by me on the battlements,
and let me tell you a story—an amusing
story, as there is a God! Do not wonder
that I speak Spanish with such a glib tongue—
I learned the language in an excellent
grammar school—rather rough it may be,
but still excellent—the castle-prison of Perote!
'

Father Pedro sank backward on the battlement,
his hands hanging motionless by his
side. He trembled as with an ague chill—
but then the air was so cold.

Taking his seat beside the monk, and resting
one arm on his rifle, the stranger began
his story,—

`Did you ever, Father Pedro, in your
priestly wanderings, behold a picture like
this? A lonely rancho, centered in a valley
of barren hills, and illumined on every stone
with the dusky glow of a clouded sunset? In
the courtyard of that rancho a handsome soldier,
standing on a log, shrieks to his blood-hounds,
and bids them put to death seventeen
men, rebel Texans, who await their fate near
the wall—a boy, mark ye, a smooth-faced,
girlish boy, standing in their midst? There
is a crash, father Pedro, a smoke, and horrible
groans, rise from that heap of palpitating
forms, which writhe, struggle and die, even

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on the spot where a moment since, stood
seventeen living men. Not a Mexican eye
but is wet with tears, not a soldier but pities
the miserable men, who are butchered thus
in cold blood. Yes; there is one! Cold,
relentless, unpitying, while all are weeping
round him, stands that handsome officer, Don
Antonio Marin!'

The Monk shuddered.

`But near the gallant officer is seen the
brother of the smooth-cheeked boy, waiting
until the smoke clears away, so that he may
recognize the mangled form of Harry Grywin.
That brother is a strong man, Father
Pedro, yet he bites his lip until the blood
comes—weeps! O, every one of his tears is
worth a Mexican's life; and all the while the
handsome officer stands smiling at his agony.
Come, man, you are dull—why don't you
laugh? When the smoke clears away, John
the elder brother advances, searches for his
girlish brother's body There are sixteen
carcasses on the sod, but Harry's is not
there!'

You may see the head of the Monk fall
slowly on his breast.

`The scene changes to Saltillo, a beautiful
city, some hundred miles and more from the
Rancho Salado. Two months have clapsed
since the handsome officer halloed his blood-hounds
to the slaughter. It is a festival day in
Saltillo, the Church lines the street with her
banners, her crosses, her glittering robes, extending
in gorgeous procession. Above all,
above the points of encircling bayonets, shines
the Host—` the body and blood of Jesus'
shrined in a golden cup. But who comes
here, along the streets—this ghastly figure
clad in rags, the face thinned by famine, the
blue eyes hollow and ghastly? It is a Texan,
aye the very boy who, two months since was
doomed, shot, in the Rancho Salado, he escaped,
wandered among the mountains for
two months, and now rushes into the ranks
of the procession, screaming for bread! for
water! For you see, he is maddened by
thirst and hunger! Like a hunted deer, that
can drag its bloody trail no longer he turns to
his hunters and beseeches mercy! Bread!
water! Behold the mercy which is given to
him. A file of soldiers separate from the
procession, at the command of their leader.—
A ghastly figure is kneeling in the centre of
the Plaza, the Cathedral before him, the host
gleaming above his head. `Present!—fire!'
There is a quivering mass of flesh and blood
on the stones of the street, and the officer advances,
contemplates the form of his victim,
or, to put it in plainer words, Don Antonio
Marin looks quietly, and with his most winning
smile, upon the mangled corse of that
boy of sixteen, girlish Harry Grywin.'

The monk lifted his eyes and muttered the
name of the Holy Trinity.

The voice of the stranger echoes clear and
deep through the silence of the night,—it
pierces the soul of Father Pedro, yet he dare
not gaze upon the eyes nor look upon the face
of the unknown man. Unknown?

`Look yonder, monk.'

So careless, so conversational was the tone
of the stranger's voice, that the monk raised
his eyes.

`Yonder, Father Pedro! Not upon the
star-lit sky, nor upon the dreary shore of sand—
not yet the wooded hills; but yonder, to
the north west. What is this that we behold?
A Texan home. Reared on an island knoll,
some sixty miles from San Antonio, amid a
grove of oaks, venerable with their waving
festoons of silver moss. Is it not beautiful?
The fountain bubbling in the centre of the
grove, the rich masses of sua and shade chasing
each other over the sod, the world of
prairie and sky, spreading around and above
that home of Prairie Eden. A father and his
three children dwell there, in the wilderness,
the free canopy of God above them, and the
breath of God hlowing freshly over the prairie,
into their dear home of the blossoming
desert. But mark ye, Father Pedro, the

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brothers are called away to San Antonio, called,
with the laborers and slaves of the plantation,
to defend the frontiers of Texas from Mexican
outrage. They are gone only a few brief
hours; warned by a supernatural messenger
they leave their men encamped and hasten
home. They do return home—behold them,
after journeying all night, approach the island
grave, in the dimness of the daybreak. John
is mounted on his black horse, Harry on his
ambling bay; and you'll remember John was
a muscular man, sure as Death with his rifle;
and Harry a mere boy, with such laughing
blue eyes that went right into his rude brother's
heart.

`They are coming home—alone!—for they
have left their soldiers on the prairie, thirty
miles away. They are in sight of Prairie
Eden. Their horses have fallen, but still they
hurry on. How beautifully the morning sun
shines over the mansion, with the oaks grouped
around it, and the white moss quivering in
every breath of air. Coming Home! They
hear the sound of the fountain, see the porch,
ascend the knoll with a merry hurrah; for
John begins to think that his presentiment
was false—the words of that awful messenger
a lie! But what is the sight that meets their
eyes as they reach the porch? Where is the
father to welcome the children home, where
the sister to press her kiss upon her brothers'
lips? Look!—ha! ha! the father hangs to
the tree before his own door, his dead face
gilded by the morning sun—the sister crouched
in the porch, a mad, a dishonored woman!
'

The monk fell on his knees,—`Mercy!—
for the sake of the Holy Trinity! No more,
no more!'

`But the brother, even John, bends over his
lost sister. `His name?—the author of this
double wrong, the doer of this devil's work?'
Hark! that voice from the white lips of the
wrecked woman,—`Don Antonio Marin!”

As he hissed the last words through his
compressed teeth—the monk crouching all the
while before him—the stranger dashed his
rifle on the flat roof and beat his forehead
with his clenched hands. The groan which
came from his lips was not human; it resemled
the howls of a dying tiger.

`You will confess, Father Pedro, that John
Grywin and Don Antonio Marin have a long
account to settle whenever they may chance
to meet. You admit that even if John should
discover Don Antonio under the cowl of a
monk, his chivalric name, transformed into
`Father Pedro,' that it would be a very amuing
thing for the said John to stab the good
father at dead of night, and pitch his bloody
carcass over the battlements into the streets of
Vera Cruz. This would be amusing, I say,
but very, very far from just. Let me picture
a little piece of justice for you. After the
lapse of long years, John Grywin finds Don
Antonio under the cowl of a monk, his only
care, the charge of a beautiful and orphaned
sister. Tho monk loves that sister. adores
her, even as John adored his sister. Yes, the
monk wishes her to marry the chivalric Don
Augustin, bestow her wealth on a convent,
and live happily for long years, encircled
by blooming children. At this crisis of
her destiny, John Grywin comes to Vera
Cruz, finds entrance into the home of the sister,
and night after night, setting by her side,
with her soft hands within his own, tells her
the moving—somewhat melancholy—story of
his life, and wins her heart forever. In this
story, mark you, he leaves the names a blank—
does not tell the voluptuous Isora, that the
name of the assassin and ravisher is Don Antonio
Marin. Well, after all his plans are
laid, John Grywin, being still in pursuit of
justice, brings the threads of destiny together
on the night of the 9th of March, 1817. Look
yonder, Father Pedro! Behold the barren
isle of Sacrificios! There, is the sepulchres
of the Aztec race, my bridal bed is waiting
for me now. Your sister is pure at this hour—
when morning dawns she will repose in my

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arms, in yonder bridal bed, sacrificed—her
honor, purity, all, offered up to the memory of
my sister! Come, Monk, unfrock yourself;
I want your cowl. It will serve me as a disguise
to pass the guard —or stay—ha! ha!
Isora shall wear the monkish gown, and I
will assume the handsome uniform of Don
Augustin.'

The monk, Father Pedro, otherwise called
Don Antonio Marin, lay prostrate on the roof—
prostrate and helpless, as though a palsy
had possessed his once vigorous limbs. His
eyes were rivetted on the face of the stranger.
He suffered him to strip the gown from his
form, saw him wind it about his form, and for
a moment all was silence.

Slowly, heavily the monk raised himself
into a sitting posture. The form of the stranger
was half lost to view in the aperture of
the stairway leading from the roof to the room
of Isora.

That face, framed in its dark hair and long
beard, glared from its large eyes full in the
face of the Monk.

`One word before we part! Your turn
will come; it is not yet time. Do you remember
walking some three months since, just
before you assumed the cowl, in the Alameda
of Mexico, your while-haired father on your
arm? It was a beautiful evening; the valley
of Mexico glowed with its groves and spires
in living light, while far above rose the volcanic
mountains, sending their smoke, like incense-clouds
into the evening sky. And you,
with your white-haired father, were walking
amid the blaze of rank and beauty which
floated along the Alameda of the gay city.—
A bullet from an unknown source, pierced
your father's brain. He fell at your feet, his
white hairs bathed in blood. Whence came
that bullet? You never could guess; in remorse
for your crimes, you deemed a vengeance
dealt by a supernatural hands, and immediately
assumed the cowl, Ha! ha! it is
indeed amusing!—that bullet came from the
rifle of the escaped prisoner, John Grywin!
'

`Oh God! my poor father!'

`Thus, one by one, I will sweep your family
down to death. First your father falls;
to-night Isora sinks in the embrace of pollution!
Last of all your turn will come, yours,
Father Pedro, otherwise called Don Antonio
Marin, hero of the Rancho Salado; hero of
the Mass at Saltillo; hero of Prairie Eden.'

He was gone.

It was some moments before the monk recovered
his consciousness, He tottered to his
feet, and the mild light of the stars shone over
his shaven face and revealed his broad forehead
and wildly-glaring eyes; there was a
damp like death upon his brow; he wiped it
away with his chilled hands; but the cold
dross started forth again and bathed his clammy
flesh.

Then gazing toward the ocean, Don Antonio
contemplated, with a shudder, the dark
history of his life.

`I thought it was but revenge when I dishonored
Isabel and slew her brother—revenge
for the scorn which the proud girl flung in my
teeth long years ago, in her Philadelphian
home! But now, my father murdered, my
sister on the verge of dishonor—I learn at
last, that the devil who urged me to my revenge,
brings home to me the poison which I
distilled for others! My sister, she is pure,
what harm has she done?'

But Isabel? Ho, ho! Sir Monk, thou hast
forgotten the beautiful and sinless girl of the
prairie?

`I will save her! So aid me God and all
his saints!'

With that trembling vow upon his lips, he
rushed down the stairway, and found himself
in the darkness of Isora's chamber.

The door, he tried it, with the nervous
force of despair, but it is fastened, and the
echo of voices came through its thick panels!

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