ly know what I did or said just then; for timidly coming forward
out of the shade, I saw the fair vision of the morning, but now deadly
pale--the maiden whom a couple of hours before I had rescued from so
horrible a death. She was dressed in a simple muslin, and her long fair
hair, yet clammy and damp, was tied with a piece of blue ribbon, and
hung down her shoulders. It was the same sweet English face that might
be seen in many a country home far away in our northern islands; but out
there, in that tropic land, with its grand scenery and majestic
vegetation, she seemed to me, in spite of her pallor, to be fairy-like
and ethereal; and for a while, as I thought of the events of a short
time before--events in which she was unconscious that I had played a
somewhat important part--I was blundering and awkward, and unable to say
more than a few of the commonest words of greeting.

I have no doubt that they all thought me an awkward clumsy oaf, and I
must have looked it; but I was suddenly brought to myself by my uncle's
voice and the sight of a pair of eyes.

"Harry," said my uncle, performing the ceremony of introduction,
"Mr--(I beg his pardon) Don--Don Pablo Garcia, a neighbour of mine--the
gentleman who just saved Lilla's life. Garcia, my nephew--my sister's
son--from old England."

Instinctively I held out my hand, and the next moment it was clasping
something cold and damp and fishlike. A few words in English passed,
but they were muttered mechanically, and for a few moments, each
apparently unable to withdraw his hand, we two stood looking in each
other's eyes, my expression--if it was a true index of my heart--being
that of wonder and distrust; for I seemed again, for the first time in
my life, to be undergoing a new series of sensations. I knew in that
instant of time that I was gazing into the eyes of a deadly enemy--of a
man who, for self-glorification, had arrogated to himself the honour of
having saved Lilla's life, probably under the impression that we, being
strangers, were bound down the river, and would never again turn up to
contradict him. What he had said, how much he had taken upon himself,
or how much had been laid upon him through the lying adulations of his
Indian servants, I do not know; but I was conscious of an intense look
of hatred and dislike--one that was returned by a glance of contempt
which made his teeth slightly grate together, though he tried to conceal
all by a snake-like smile a