en now hear
the cry of anguish I uttered. What an impetuous young man you then
were!"

"That I no longer am," said Fabian, smiling sadly.

"Oh, no! at the present time your manner is imbued with the firm
stoicism of an Indian warrior who smiles at the tortures of the stake.
In the midst of these scenes your face is calm, yet I am convinced the
recollections they recall to you must be harrowing in the extreme; is it
not so, Fabian?"

"You are mistaken, my father," replied Fabian; "my heart resembles this
rock, where, though you say so, I no longer trace my horse's hoofs; and
my memory is mute as the echo of your own voice, which you seem still to
hear. When, before suffering me to return and live forever removed from
the inhabitants of yonder deserts, you required as a last trial that I
should again behold a spot which might recall old recollections, I told
you those recollections no longer existed."

A tear dimmed the Canadian's eye, but he concealed it by turning his
back to Fabian as he remounted his mule.

The travellers then crossed the bridge formed of the trunks of trees.

"Do you trace upon this moss which covers the ground the print of my
horse's hoofs when I pursued Don Estevan and his troop?" asked Fabian of
Bois-Rose. "No! the dead leaves of the past winter have obliterated
them--the grass which sprung up after the rainy season has grown over
them."

"Ah! if I raised the leaves, if I tore up the grass, I should again
discover their traces, Fabian; and if I searched the depth of your
heart--"

"You would find nothing, I tell you," interrupted Fabian with some
impatience; "but I am mistaken," he added, gently, "you would find a
reminiscence of childhood, one of those in which you are associated, my
father."

"I believe it, Fabian, I believe it--you who have been the delight of my
whole life; but I have told you that I will not accept your sacrifice
until to-morrow at this hour, when you shall have seen all, even the
breach in the old wall, over which you once sprung, wounded in body and
spirit."

A shudder, like that of the condemned on seeing the last terrible
instrument of torture, passed through Fabian's frame.

The travellers halted at length, in that part of the forest situated
between the Salto de Agua and the hacienda, in the open space where
Fabian had found in the Canadian and his comrade, friends whom God
seemed to have sent to him from the extreme ends of the earth.

Now the shade