lunged down the cliff and was crushed to death a thousand feet below.

CHAPTER XIII

IN WHICH CAPTAIN ALVARADO IS FORSWORN AND WITH DONNA MERCEDES IN HIS
ARMS BREAKS HIS PLIGHTED WORD

"My God!" cried the young soldier hoarsely, straining her to his breast,
while endeavoring to calm his nervous and excited horse. "What would you
have done?"

[Illustration]

"Why didn't you let me go?" she asked, struggling feebly in his arms.
"It would all have been over then."

"I could not, I love you."

The words were wrung from him in spite of himself by her deadly peril,
by her desperate design which he had only frustrated by superhuman
quickness and strength. He was pale, shaking, trembling, unnerved, for
her. He scarce knew what he said or did, so little command had he over
himself.

As he spoke those words "I love you," so blissful for her to hear, she
slipped her arm around his neck. It was not in mortal man to resist
under such circumstances. He forgot everything--honor, duty, his word,
everything he threw to the winds. Before the passion which sought death
when denied him his own powers of resistance vanished. He strained her
to his breast and bent his head to kiss her. Again and again he drank at
the upturned fountain of affection, her lips. The shock had been too
much for him. Greater for him than for her. He had seen her upon the
verge of eternity. She thought nothing of that in her present joy. She
only realized that she was in his arms again, that he had kissed her,
and between the kisses he poured out words that were even greater
caresses.

The others were far behind. They were alone upon the mountain-side with
the rocks behind and the great sapphire sea of the Caribbean before
them. He held her close to his breast and they forgot everything but
love as they gently pricked along the road. It was near noon now, and as
the road a furlong farther debouched into an open plateau shaded by
trees and watered by a running brook which purled down the mountain-side
from some inaccessible cloud-swept height it was a fitting place to make
camp, where the whole party, tired by a long morning's travel, could
repose themselves until the breeze of afternoon tempered the heat of the
day. Here he dismounted, lifted her from horse, and they stood together,
side by side.

"You have saved me," she whispered, "you have drawn me back from the
death that I sought. God has given me to you. We shall never be parted."

"I a