he captive with the air of one who has both the wish
and the power to give liberty. She is the first to speak, asking
abruptly--

"Do you wish to be free?"

"Why do you ask that?" is the interrogative rejoinder, in a tone
distrustful. For that smile may be but to deceive.

"Because Nacena has it in her power to give you freedom if you desire
it."

"Desire it!" exclaims the captive. "Nacena is but mocking me," she
adds, involuntarily falling into the figurative mode of speech peculiar
to the American Indian. "Indeed, I do desire it. But how could Nacena
set me at liberty?"

"By taking the paleface to her people."

"They are far away--hundreds of miles. Would Nacena herself take me to
them?"

"No. That is not needed. The paleface is mistaken. Her friends are
not far away, but near. They wait for her to come out to them."

The captive gives a start of surprise, the light of hope and joy, long
absent from her eyes, rekindling in them, as another light breaks upon
her.

"Of whom does Nacena speak?"

"Of your brother the fair-haired youth, your cousin the dark Paraguayan,
and the gaucho who has guided them hither. All three are close to the
_tolderia_, on the other side of the hill--as I've said, expecting you.
Nacena has spoken with them, and promised she will conduct you to where
they are. White sister!" she adds, in a tone of unmistakeable
sincerity, at the same time drawing closer to the captive, and tenderly
taking her by the hand, "do not show distrust, but let Nacena keep her
word. She will restore you to your friends, your brother; ah! to one
who waits for you with anxiety keener than all!"

At the last words the captive bends upon her would-be deliverer a
bewildered, wondering look. Is it possible Nacena has knowledge of her
tenderest secret? It must be so; but how can she have learnt it?
Surely Cypriano--whom she says she has seen outside and spoken with--
surely, he could not have revealed it; would not! Francesca forgets
that the Indian girl was for years a near neighbour to her father's
_estancia_; and though never visiting there, with the keen intuition of
her race was like enough to have learnt, that the relationship between
her cousin and herself had something in it beyond mere cousinly
affection.

While she is still cogitating as to how Nacena could have come to this
knowledge, and wondering the while, the latter bleaks in upon her
wonderment, and once more urges her to flight