The two elder hunters were asleep; the youngest alone kept watch. It
was his turn, and as usual he had been compelled to insist upon it--for
his companions seemed unwilling thus to allow him to share their toils.

"As for myself, sick and suffering, I was stretched upon the ground.
After many vain efforts to obtain a little rest, at length I slept, when
a frightful dream awoke me with a start.

"`Did you hear nothing?' I asked of the young man, in a low voice.
`Nothing,' he replied, `except the rumbling of the subterranean
volcanoes in the mountains.' `Say, rather, that we are here in an
accursed spot,' I continued, and then I related my dream to him.

"`It is, perhaps a warning,' he said gravely. `I remember one night to
have had just such a dream, when--'

"The young man paused. He had advanced to the edge of the rock. I
crawled after him mechanically. The same object arrested our attention
at the same moment.

"One of those spirits of darkness which might have inhabited such a
spot, appeared suddenly to have acquired a visible form. It was a kind
of phantom, with the head and skin of a wolf, but erect upon its legs
like a human being. I made the sign of the cross, and murmured a
prayer, but the phantom did not stir.

"`It is the devil,' I whispered.

"`It is an Indian,' replied the young man; `there are his companions at
some distance.'

"In short, our eyes, well practised in making out objects in the dark,
could distinguish about twenty Indians, stretched upon the ground, and
who, in truth, had no idea of our vicinity.

"Ah, Senorita!" added the narrator, addressing himself to Dona Rosarita,
"it was one of those opportunities fraught with danger, which the poor
young man sought with so much avidity; and your heart, like mine, would
have been torn at beholding the sad joy which sparkled in his eyes; for
the further we travelled in this direction the more his melancholy
seemed to increase.

"`Let us wake our friends,' I suggested.

"`No; let me go alone. These two men have done enough for me. It is
now my turn to run a risk for them and, if I die, I shall forget--'

"As he spoke these words the young man quitted me, made a detour, and I
lost sight of him--without, however, ceasing to behold the frightful
apparition which continued immovable in the same spot.

"All at once I saw another dusky shape, which rushed towards the phantom
and seized it by the throat. The two forms grappled with one