t leisure to recollect
himself, which would be a pity."

"I hold it necessary," continued Cuchillo, flattered at the compliment,
"to prove that men own such a susceptible conscience as mine; here then
are the facts--My friend Tio Tomas had a nephew impatient to inherit his
uncle's fortune; I received a hundred dollars from the nephew to hasten
the moment of his inheritance. It was very little for such a capital
will.

"It was so little that I gave Tio Tomas warning, and received _two_
hundred dollars to prevent his nephew becoming his heir. I committed a
fault in--despatching the nephew without giving him warning, as I ought
to have done, perhaps. It was then I felt how inconvenient a
quarrelsome conscience like mine may become. I seized upon the only
means of composition which was left me. The nephew's money was a
continual remorse to me, and I resolved to get rid of it."

"Of the money?"

"Not so."

"And you despatched the uncle as well?" cried Pepe.

Cuchillo assented.

"From that time my conscience had but little to reproach me with. I had
gained three hundred dollars by the most ingenious integrity."

Cuchillo was yet smiling, when Fabian exclaimed--

"Were you paid for assassinating Marcos Arellanos?"

At this astounding accusation a livid paleness overspread Cuchillo's
features.

He could no longer disguise from himself the fate that awaited him.

The bandage which covered his eyes fell suddenly; and to the flattering
delusions with which he had deceived himself succeeded a formidable
reality.

"Marcos Arellanos!" he stammered out in a weak voice, "who told you
that? I did not kill him!"

Fabian smiled bitterly.

"Who tells the shepherd," he cried, "where the den of the jaguar is to
be found that devours his sheep?

"Who tells the vaquero where the horse that he pursues has taken refuge?

"To the Indian, the enemy he seeks?

"To the gold-seeker the ore, concealed by God?

"The surface of the lake only does not preserve the trace of the bird
which flies over its waters, nor the form of the cloud which it
reflects; but the earth, with its herbs and mosses, reveals to us sons
of the desert, the print of the jaguar's foot as well as the horse's
hoof and the Indian's track; do you not know it, even as I do?"

"I did not kill Arellanos," repeated the assassin.

"You did kill him; you cut his throat near to our common country; you
threw his corpse into the river; the earth revealed it