The Tiger Hunter Part 66

The young girl endeavours to conceal the sigh which these thoughts have summoned up, and though the moon is still bright enough for her to perceive upon the countenance of Don Rafael an expression of the most loyal love, she cannot rest satisfied. Unable to restrain herself, again and again she repeats the interrogatory, "Do you still love me, Rafael?" Again and again she receives the same affirmative answer without being a.s.sured!

"Oh, it is too much happiness!" cries she, suddenly raising her head from the pillow, "I cannot believe it, Rafael. As for the sincerity of my words, you could not doubt them. The messenger has told you-- plainly, has he not?--that I could not live without you? Then you came to me--yes, you have come," continues she, with a sigh that betokens the mingling of sorrow with her new-sprung joy; "but for all that, oh!

Rafael, what can you say to me that will convince me you still love me?"

"What shall I say?" rejoins Don Rafael, repeating her words. "Only this, Gertrudis. I vowed to you that whenever I should receive this sacred message," at this drawing the tress from his bosom, and pressing it proudly to his lips, "I vowed that though my arm at the moment might be raised to strike my deadliest enemy, it should fall without inflicting the blow. I have come, Gertrudis--I am here!"

"You are generous, Rafael. I know that. You swore it! and--oh! my G.o.d; what do I hear?"

The interruption was caused by a wild cry that seemed to rise out of the earth close to the path which the procession was following. It seemed like the voice of some one in pain, and calling for deliverance or mercy. Gertrudis trembled with affright as she nestled closer within the curtains of the _litera_.

"Do not be alarmed," said Don Rafael; "it is nothing you need fear; only the voice of the monster Arroyo praying to be set free. He is lying over yonder upon the sand, bound hand and foot. He is still living; and to you, Gertrudis, does he owe his life. This a.s.sa.s.sin of my father-- whom for two years I have pursued in vain--but a moment ago was about to receive death at my hands when your messenger arrived. I hesitated not, Gertrudis. It was but too much happiness to keep my oath. I cut the cords that attached him to the tail of my horse--in order that I should come to you the sooner."

Gertrudis, almost fainting, allowed her head to fall back upon the pillow; and as Don Rafael, frightened at the effect of his communication, bent closer to the _litera_, he heard murmured in a low voice, the sweet words--

"Your hand, Rafael! Oh! let me thank you for the happiness you have given me, a happiness that no words can describe."

And Don Rafael, his frame quivering with exquisite emotion, felt the soft pressure of her lips upon the hand which he had hastened to offer.

Then, as if abashed by this ardent avowal of her pa.s.sion, the young girl suddenly closed the curtains of the _litera_, to enjoy in secret, and under the eye of G.o.d alone, that supreme felicity of knowing that she was beloved as she herself loved--a felicity that had, as it were, restored her life.

Like phantoms which have been called up by the imagination--like the unreal shadows in a dream, which one after another vanish out of sight-- so the different personages in our drama, whose sufferings, whose loves, and whose combats we have witnessed, are all gradually disappearing from the scene where we have viewed them for the last time--Don Fernando and Marianita on their funereal bier; Gertrudis, in her _litera_, restored to new life; Don Rafael, Don Mariano, and his followers.

Don Cornelio, Costal, and Clara had already gone far from the spot; and soon the last horseman of the Colonel's escort, forming the rearguard of the procession, had filed through the belt of cedrela trees--leaving the Lake Ostuta apparently as deserted as if human footsteps had never strayed along its sh.o.r.es.

And yet this desertion was only apparent. Upon the edge of the lake at that point where the chase of the bandits had terminated, two human bodies might, be seen lying along the ground. One was dead; and the other, though still living, was equally motionless. The former was the corpse of Bocardo, who in the _melee_ had been despatched by the troopers of Don Rafael. The living body was that of Arroyo, who, still bound hand and foot with the lazo, was unable to stir from the spot.

There lay he with no one to pity--no one to lend a helping hand; destined at no distant time to make a meal for the vultures, to perish by the poignard of some royalist, or to excite the compa.s.sion of an insurgent.

The moon had disappeared below the horizon, and the vitreous transparence which her light had lent to the enchanted hill, giving it a semblance of life, was no more to be observed. The lake no longer glittered under the silvery beam. Both Ostuta and Monopostiac had resumed the sombre aspect that usually distinguished them, with that mournful tranquillity that habitually reigned over the spot--interrupted only by the cry of the coyote, or the shrill maniac scream of the eagle preparing to descend to the banquet of human flesh!

THE END.