Wood Rangers Part 70

replied Bois-Rose. "Is not this your desire, Fabian?"

"It matters little to me," replied the young man; "here or yonder, are we not always agreed?"

Fabian, as we have said, had long felt that the Canadian could not live, even with him, in the heart of towns, without yearning for the liberty and free air of the desert. He knew also that to live without him would be still more impossible for his comrade; and he had generously offered himself as a sacrifice to the affection of the old hunter.

Bois-Rose was aware of the full extent of the sacrifice, and the tear he had that morning shed by stealth, was one of grat.i.tude. We shall by-and-by enter more fully into the Canadian's feelings.

The position of the stars indicated eleven o'clock.

"Go, my son," said Bois-Rose to Fabian. "When you have reached the spot where you parted from the woman who perhaps loved you, put your hand upon your heart. If you do not feel its pulses beat quicker, return, for you will then have overcome the past."

"I shall return, then," replied Fabian, in a tone of melancholy firmness: "memory is to me like the breath of the wind which pa.s.ses by without resting, and leaves no trace."

He departed slowly. A fresh breeze tempered the hot exhalations which rose from the earth. A resplendent moon shone upon the landscape at the moment when Fabian, having quitted the shadow of the forest, reached the open s.p.a.ce intervening between it and the wall inclosing the hacienda.

Until that moment he proceeded with a slow but firm step, but when, through the silver vapours of the night, he perceived the white wall with the breach in the centre partly visible, his pace slackened, and his knees trembled under him.

Did he dread his approaching defeat? for his conscience told him already that he would be vanquished--or was it rather those recollections which, now so painfully recalled, rose up before him like the floods of the sea?

There was a deep silence, and the night, but for a slight vapour, was clear. All at once Fabian halted and stood still like the dismayed traveller, who sees a phantom rise up in his path. A white and airy form appeared distinctly visible above the breach in the old wall. It resembled one of the fairies in the old legends of the north, which to the eye of the Scandinavian idolaters floated amidst vapours and mists.

To the eye of Fabian it bore the angel form of his first and only love!

For one instant this lovely apparition appeared to Fabian to melt away; but his eyes deceived him, for in spite of himself they were obscured.

The vision remained stationary. When he had strength to move, he advanced nearer, and still the vision did not disappear.

The young man's heart felt as if it would burst, for at this moment a horrible idea crossed his mind. He believed that what he saw was Rosarita's spirit, and he would rather a thousand times have known her living, though pitiless and disdainful, than behold her dead, though she appeared in the form of a gentle and benignant apparition.

A voice, whose sweet accents fell upon his ear like heavenly music, failed to dispel the illusion, though the voice spoke in human accents.

"Is it you, Tiburcio? I expected you."

Even the penetration of a spirit from the other world could not have divined that he would return from such a distance.

"Is it you, Rosarita?" cried Fabian, in a scarcely perceptible voice, "or a delusive vision which will quickly disappear?"

And Fabian stood motionless, fixed to the spot, so greatly did he fear that the beloved image would vanish from his sight.

"It is I," said the voice; "I am indeed here."

"O G.o.d! the trial will be more terrible than I dared to think," said Fabian, inwardly.

And he advanced a step forward, then paused; the poor young man did not entertain a hope.

"By what miracle of heaven do I find you here?" he cried.

"I come every evening, Tiburcio," replied the young girl.

This time Fabian began to tremble more with love than hope.

We have seen that Rosarita, in her last interview with Fabian, chose rather to run the risk of death than confess that she loved him. Since then she had suffered so much, she had shed so many tears, that now love was stronger than virgin purity.

A young girl may sometimes, by such courage, sanctify and enhance her modesty.

"Come nearer, Tiburcio," she said; "see! here is my hand."

Fabian rushed forward to her feet. He seized the hand she offered convulsively, but he tried in vain to speak.

The young girl looked down with anxious tenderness upon his face.

"Let me see if you are much changed, Tiburcio," she continued. "Ah!

yes. Grief has left its traces on your brow, but honour has enn.o.bled it. You are as brave as you are handsome, Tiburcio. I learned with pride that danger had never made your cheek turn pale."

"You heard, did you say?" cried Fabian; "but what have you heard?"

"All, Tiburcio; even to your most secret thoughts. I have heard all, even of your coming here this evening. Do you understand? and I am here!"

"Before I dare to comprehend, Rosarita,--for this time a mistake would kill me," continued Fabian, whose heart was stirred to its very depths by the young girl's words, and the tenderness of her manner, "will you answer one question, that is if I dare to ask it?"

"Dare, then, Tiburcio," said Rosarita, tenderly. "Ask what you wish. I came to-night to hear you--to deny you nothing."

"Listen," said the young Count: "six months ago I had to avenge my mother's death, and that of the man who had stood in my father's place, Marcos Arellanos; for if you know all, you know that I am no longer--"

"To me you are the same, Tiburcio; I never knew Don Fabian de Mediana."

"The wretch who was about to expiate his crime--the a.s.sa.s.sin of Marcos Arellanos, in short, Cuchillo--begged for his life. I had no power to grant it; when he cried, 'I ask it in the name of Dona Rosarita, who loves you, for I heard--,' the suppliant was upon the edge of a precipice. I would have pardoned him for love of you; when one of my companions precipitated him into the gulf below. A hundred times, in the silence of the night, I recalled that suppliant voice, and asked myself in anguish, What did he then hear? I ask it of you this evening, Rosarita."

"Once, once only, did my lips betray the secret of my heart. It was here, in this very spot, when you had quitted our dwelling. I will repeat to you what I then said."

The girl seemed to be collecting all her strength, before she dared tell the young man that she loved him, and that openly and pa.s.sionately; then--her pure countenance shining with virgin innocence, which fears not, because it knows no ill, she turned towards Tiburcio.

"I have suffered too much," she said, "from one mistake, to allow of any other; it is thus, then, with my hands in yours, and my eyes meeting yours, that I repeat to you what I then said. You had fled from me, Tiburcio. I knew you were far away, and I thought G.o.d alone heard me when I cried: '_Come back, Tiburcio, come back! I love only you_!'"

Fabian, trembling with love and happiness, knelt humbly at the feet of this pure young girl, as he might have done before a Madonna, who had descended from her pedestal.

At this moment he was lost to all the world,--Bois-Rose, the past, the future--all were forgotten like a dream on awaking, and he cried in a broken voice:

"Rosarita! I am yours forever! I dedicate my future life to you only."

Rosarita uttered a faint cry. Fabian turned, and remained mute with astonishment.

Leaning quietly upon his long carbine, stood Bois-Rose, a few paces from them, contemplating, with a look of deep tenderness the two lovers.

It was the realisation of his dream in the isle of Rio Gila.

"Oh, my father!" cried Fabian sadly; "do you forgive me for suffering myself to be vanquished?"

"Who would not have been, in your place, my beloved Fabian?" said the Canadian, smiling.

"I have broken my oath, my father!" continued Fabian; "I had promised never to love any other but you. Pardon! pardon!"