l, Fabian, and remember that it not pardon, but oblivion,
for which I sue. Thanks to that oblivion, it rests with you to become,
in my adopted son, the princely heir of the house of Mediana. After my
death my title will expire."

As he listened to these words the young man became deadly pale; but
spurning in his heart the temptation held out to him, Fabian closed his
ears to that voice which offered him so large a share of the riches of
this world, as though he had but heard the light whispers of the breeze
amid the foliage of the trees.

"Oh, Count Mediana, why did you kill my mother?" cried Fabian, covering
his face with his hands; then, glancing towards the poignard planted in
the sand, "My lord of Armada," he added, solemnly, "the poignard is
without a shadow!"

Don Antonio trembled in spite of himself, as he then recalled the
prophetic threat, which twenty years before the Countess de Mediana had
compelled him to hear.

"Perhaps," she had said, "the God whom you blaspheme will ordain, that
in the heart of a desert, untrodden by the foot of man, you shall find
an accuser, a witness, a judge, and an executioner."

Accuser, witness, and judge were all before him, but who was to be the
executioner? However, nothing was wanting for the accomplishment of the
dreadful prophecy.

A noise of branches, suddenly torn apart, was heard at this moment.

The moment after, a man emerged from the brushwood, his habiliments
dripping with water and soiled with mud. It was Cuchillo.

The bandit advanced with an air of imperturbable coolness, though he
appeared to limp slightly.

Not one of the four men, so deeply absorbed in their own terrible
reflections, showed any astonishment at his presence.

"Carramba! you expected me then?" he cried; "and yet I persisted in
prolonging the most disagreeable bath I have ever taken, for fear of
causing you all a surprise, for which my self-love might have suffered,"
(Cuchillo did not allude to his excursion in the mountains); "but the
water of this lake is so icy that rather than perish with cold, I would
have run a greater risk than meeting with old friends."

"Added to this I felt a wound in my leg reopen. It was received some
time since, in fact, long ago, in my youth.

"Senor Don Estevan, Don Tiburcio, I am your very humble servant."

A profound silence succeeded these words. Cuchillo began to feel that
he was acting the part of the hare, who takes refuge in the teeth of t