be so distressing to your feelings. It consoles me,
however, to think that I can place you in the care of those who have
pledged themselves to treat you with every consideration."

Saying this, he threw himself from his horse, and found no difficulty in
bearing to the ground the yielding form of Theodora. She could not
speak; amazement had absorbed all the powers of her mind, and benumbed
the principle of will and action. She stood wildly gazing on vacancy,
like one conscious of labouring under a dreadful dream, and striving to
awake from the painful illusion. But when Caneri advanced, when she
actually saw his hated figure standing before her with a smile of
exulting joy, she seemed suddenly to regain all her powers of
recollection.

"'Tis he!" she cried franticly, "'tis he. Oh! horror!"--She ran wildly
towards her lover.

"Oh, Lope, deliver me from him."

"No, young lady," returned the Moor, "you must now come with me."

"Oh, heaven!" she shrieked, "no, no, he cannot--he will not thus abandon
me!--Oh, Lope!--my dear--my own beloved!--undeceive this barbarous,
this abhorred Moor."

She appealed to her lover in the fervour of deep anguish,--he turned
from her to depart; the moment was bitter; he felt the rankling pangs of
remorse. The wretched girl clung to him,--he made one desperate struggle
to disengage himself.

"Moor, take her," he cried with throbbing emotion, "but oh! deal thou
more kindly by her than I have done. Here," he continued, "receive this,
and see that she is treated with the regard which her beauty merits, and
her misfortunes deserve. Act faithfully to thy pledge, or dread the
worst effects of my vengeance."

He threw a large purse of gold upon the ground, which Malique lost no
time in securing, whilst Caneri, addressing Gomez Arias,--

"Christian," he said, "I fear not thy vengeance, and I value not thy
gifts; the word of a Moor is plighted; I love the beauteous female, and
these considerations will afford the best security for my conduct."

He then advanced to take the hand of Theodora, but she flew from him
with a look of wildness that might have moved the very stones to pity.

"Oh! no, no, never! Gomez Arias, you may be cruel, but cannot be
infamous.--Oh, do not, do not deliver me into the hands of the detested
enemy of our country--the ferocious, the false Caneri."

"What!" exclaimed Gomez Arias, surprised, "is this, then, Caneri, the
rebel chief?"

"The same," replied the renegade