refute the charge. I have done."

"You hear him?" said Fabian, "what have you to say in your defence?"

A violent struggle between his conscience and his pride took place in
Mediana's breast.

Pride however triumphed.

"Nothing," replied Don Antonio.

"Nothing!" answered Fabian, "but you do not perhaps know what a terrible
duty I have to fulfil?"

"I can imagine it."

"And I," cried Fabian passionately, "shall not flinch in accomplishing
it. Yet, though my mother's blood cries out for vengeance, should you
refute the charge, I would bless you still. Swear to me then, in the
name of Mediana, which we bear in common, by your honour and the
salvation of your soul, that you are innocent, and I shall be too happy
to believe you."

Then, oppressed with an intolerable anguish, Fabian awaited his reply.

But, gloomy and inflexible as the fallen archangel, Mediana was silent.

At this moment Diaz advanced towards the judges and the prisoner.

"I have listened," said he, "with the utmost attention to your
accusation again Don Estevan de Arechiza, whom I also know to be the
Duke de Armada; may I express my thoughts freely?"

"Speak!" said Fabian.

"One point seems to me doubtful. I do not know whether the crime you
attribute to this noble cavalier was committed by him; but, admitting
that to be the case, have you any right to condemn him? In accordance
with the laws of our frontier, where no court may be held, it is only
the nearest relatives of the victim who are entitled to claim the blood
of the murderer.

"Don Tiburcio's youth was passed in this country. I knew him as the
adopted son of Marcos Arellanos.

"Who can prove that Tiburcio Arellanos is the son of the murdered lady?

"How, after so many years, can it be possible for this hunter, formerly
a sailor, to recognise in the midst of these solitudes, the young man,
whom as a child he beheld only for an instant on a foggy night?"

"Answer, Bois-Rose," said Fabian, coldly.

The Canadian again rose.

"I ought, in the first place, to state," said the old hunter, "that it
was not only for a few moments on a foggy night that I saw the child in
question. During the space of two years, after having saved him from
certain death, I kept him on board the vessel in which I was a sailor.

"The features of his son could not be more deeply impressed upon the
memory of a father than those of that child were on mine.

"How then can you affirm that it is impos