y. If the assassin be not
dead, cupidity will doubtless bring him again to this place, and before
long; for no doubt he is one of those in the Mexican camp. Now, Fabian,
shall we wait for the enemy here, or shall we fill our pockets with gold
and return?"

"I know not what to decide," replied Fabian; "I came here almost against
my will. I obey your wishes, or else a will stronger than either yours
or mine. I feel that an invisible hand impels me on--as it did on that
evening when, scarcely knowing what I did, I came and sat down by your
fire. Why should I, who do not know what to do with this gold, risk my
life to obtain it? I know not. I know only that here I am, with a sad
heart and a soul filled with cruel uncertainty."

"Man is but the plaything of Providence, it is true," said Bois-Rose;
"but as for the sadness you feel, the aspect of these places
sufficiently accounts for it; and as for--"

A hoarse cry, that scarcely appeared human, interrupted the Canadian.
It seemed to come from the Indian tomb, as if it were an accusing voice
against the invaders of this abode of the dead. The three hunters
glanced simultaneously towards the tomb, but no living creature was
visible there. The eye of one of the birds of prey, that were sailing
above the rock, could alone have told where the cry came from. The
imposing solemnity of the place, the bloody souvenirs evoked by it in
Fabian's mind, and the superstitious ones in that of Pepe, joined to the
strange and mysterious sound, inspired in both a feeling akin to terror.
There was something so inexplicable in the sound, that for a moment
they doubted having heard it.

"Is it really the voice of a man?" said Bois-Rose, "or only one of those
singular echoes which resound in these mountains?"

"If it were a human voice," asked Fabian, "where did it come from? it
seemed to be above us, and yet I see no one on the top of the hill!"

"God send," said Pepe, crossing himself, "that in these mountains which
abound in inexplicable noises, and where lightning shines under a calm
sky, we have only men to fight against! But if the fog contained a
legion of devils--if the valley really contains, as you say, several
years' income of the king of Spain, please, Senor Don Fabian, to recall
your recollections, and tell us if we are still far off it."

Fabian threw a glance around him; the landscape was just what had been
so minutely described to him.

"We must be close to the