bent on sacrificing
the husband to his rage. Again, the desire of winning the esteem of
Miranda softened his soul, and he permitted the husband and wife to meet.

As the days of captivity passed the strictness of their detention was
relaxed and they were permitted greater freedom of action. As a result
they met each other more frequently and under less restraint. But this
growing leniency in the cacique had its limits: they might converse, but
they were warned against indulging in any of the fond caresses of love.
Jealousy still burned in his soul, and if Miranda would not become his, he
was resolved that no one else should enjoy the evidence of her affection.

The situation was a painful one. Husband and wife, as Hurtado and Miranda
were, they continued lovers as well, and it was not easy to repress the
feelings that moved them. Prudence bade them avoid any show of love, and
they resolved to obey its dictates; but prudence is weak where love
commands, and in one fatal moment Siripa surprised them clasped in each
other's arms and indulging in the ardent kisses of love.

Filled with wild jealousy at the sight and carried away by ungovernable
fury at their contempt of his authority and their daring disregard of his
feelings, he ordered them both to instant execution. Hurtado's old
sentence was renewed: he was bound to a tree and his body pierced with
arrows. As for Miranda, she was sentenced by the jealous and furious
savage to a more painful death, that of the flames. Yet painful as it was,
the loyal wife doubtless preferred it to yielding to the passion of the
chief, and as a quick means of rejoining in soul life her lover and
husband.

Thus ends the most romantic and tragical story of love and faith that the
early annals of America have to show, and the fate of the faithful Miranda
has become a classic in the love-lore of the America of the south.

LANTARO, THE BOY HERO OF THE ARAUCANIANS.

The river Biobio, in Southern Chili, was for centuries the boundary
between liberty and oppression in South America. South of it lay the land
of the Araucanians, that brave and warlike people who preserved their
independence against the whites, the only Indian nation in America of
which this can be said. Valorous and daring as were the American Indians,
their arms and their arts were those of the savage, and the great
multitude of them were unable to stand before the weapons and the
discipline of their white invaders