al failure of his
hopes. "I ought not to forget that you are doubtless inclined to profit
by this right. I shall answer your question then when I tell you that I
am aware of but one fact concerning you, which is that some demon has
inspired you continually to cast some impediment in the way of the
object I pursue--I know--"

Here rage stifled his utterance.

The impetuous young man listened with a changing countenance to the
words uttered by the assassin of his mother, and whom he even now
suspected was the murderer of his adopted father.

Truly it is the heroism of moderation, at which those who do not know
the slight value attached to human life in the deserts, cannot be
sufficiently astonished--for here law cannot touch the offender--but the
short space of time which had elapsed since Fabian joined Bois-Rose was
sufficient, under the gentle influence of the old hunter, to calm his
feelings immeasurably.

He was no longer the young man whose fiery passions were the instruments
of a vengeance to which he yielded blindly. He had learnt that power
should go hand in hand with justice, and may often be combined with
mercy.

This was the secret of a moderation, hitherto so opposed to his
temperament. It was not, however, difficult to trace, in the changing
expression of his countenance, the efforts he had been compelled to make
to impose a restraint upon his anger.

On his side, the Spanish noble concealed his passion under the mask of
silence.

"So then," resumed Fabian, "you know nothing more of me? You are not
acquainted either with my name or rank? I am nothing more to you than
what I seem?"

"An assassin, perhaps!" replied Mediana, turning his back to Fabian to
show that he did not wish to reply to his question.

During the dialogue which had taken place between these two men of the
same blood, and of equally unconquerable nature, the wood-rangers had
remained at some distance.

"Approach," said Fabian to the ex-carabinier, "and say," added he, with
forced calmness, "what you know of me to this man whose lips have dared
to apply to me a name which he only deserves."

If any doubt could still have remained upon Don Estevan's mind with
regard to the intentions of those into whose hands he had fallen, that
doubt must have disappeared when he beheld the gloomy air with which
Pepe came forward in obedience to Fabian's command.

The visible exertion he made to repress the rancorous feelings which the
s