Chapter 54 - Wood Rangers: The Trappers of Sonora by Mayne Reid
The Return
When Don Augustin Peña returned, he found his daughter alone, and still kneeling; he waited until her prayer was finished. The news of Don Estevan’s death so entirely occupied the haciendado’s mind that he naturally attributed Doña Rosarita’s pious action to another motive than the true one. He believed that she was offering up to Heaven a fervent prayer for the repose of his spirit, whose mysterious end they had just been made acquainted with.
“Every day,” said he, “during the following year, the Chaplain will, by my orders, say a mass for Don Estevan’s soul, for this man spake of the justice of God, which was accomplished in the desert. These words are serious, and the manner with which they were pronounced, leaves no doubt as to their veracity.”
“May God pardon him!” replied Rosarita, rising from her knees, “and grant him the mercy he requires.”
“May God pardon him!” repeated Don Augustin, earnestly, “the noble Don Estevan was no ordinary man, or rather, that you may now know it, Rosarita, Don Antonia de Mediana, who, in his lifetime, was Knight of the Grand Cross, and Duke de Armada.”
“Mediana, did you say, my father?” cried the young girl, “what! he must then be his son?”
“Of whom do you speak?” asked Don Augustin, in astonishment, “Don Antonio was never married. What can you mean?”
“Nothing, my father, unless it be that your daughter is to-day very happy.”
As she said these words, Doña Rosarita threw her arms round her father’s neck, and leaning her head upon his breast burst into a passion of tears; but in these tears there was no bitterness, they flowed softly, like the dew which the American jasmine sheds in the morning from its purple flowers.
The haciendado, but little versed in the knowledge of the female heart, misconstrued the tears, which are sometimes a luxury to women; and he could conceive nothing of the happiness which was drawing them from his daughter’s eyes.
He questioned her anew, but she contented herself with answering, while her lips were parted by a smile, and her eyes were still moist.
“To-morrow I shall tell you all, my father.”
The good haciendado did indeed require the explanation of this mystery, when he was left in ignorance of the chief fact concerning it.
“We have another duty to fulfil,” continued he; “the last wish expressed by Don Antonio, on parting from me, was that you should be united to the Senator Tragaduros. It will be in compliance with the request of one who is now no more, that this marriage should no longer be delayed. Do you see any obstacle to it, Rosarita?”
The young girl started at these words, which reminded her of the fatal engagement she had sought to banish from memory. Her bosom swelled, and her tears flowed afresh.
“Well,” said the haciendado, smiling, “this is another proof of happiness, is it not?”
“Of happiness!” repeated Rosarita, bitterly. “Oh! no, no, my father!”
Don Augustin was now more puzzled than ever; for, as he himself alleged, his life had been spent more in studying the artifices of Indians, with whom he had long disputed his domain, than in diving into the hearts of women.
“Oh, my father!” cried Rosarita, “this marriage would now prove a sentence of death to your poor child!”
At this sudden declaration, which he had not expected, Don Augustin was quite stupefied, and it was with difficulty he subdued the anger to which it had given rise.
“What!” he cried with some warmth, “did you not yourself consent to this marriage only a month ago? Did you not agree that it should be consummated when we knew that Don Estevan could not return? He is dead; what then do you wish?”
“It is true, father; I did fix that period, but—”
“Well!”
“But I did not know that he still lived.”
“Don Antonio de Mediana?”
“No; Don Fabian de Mediana,” replied Rosarita, in a low voice.
“Don Fabian? who is this Fabian of whom you speak?”
“He whom we called Tiburcio Arellanos.”
Don Augustin remained mute with surprise: his daughter took advantage of his silence.
“When I consented to this marriage,” said she, “I believed that Don Fabian was forever lost to us. I did not know that he still loved me; and yet—consider whether I do not love you, my father; consider what a grievous sacrifice I made in my affection for you—I knew well—”
As she spoke these words—her eyes moist with tears, yet shining with their own sweet lustre—the poor girl approached, and, by a sudden impulse, threw herself upon her father’s shoulder to hide her rising blushes.
“I knew then that I loved him only,” she murmured.
“But of whom do you speak?”
“Of Tiburcio Arellanos—of the Count Fabian de Mediana—they are one and the same person.”
“Of the Count Mediana?” repeated Don Augustin.
“Yes,” cried Rosarita, passionately; “I still love in him Tiburcio Arellanos, however noble, powerful, and rich may be at this hour Count Fabian de Mediana.”
Noble, powerful, and rich, are words that sound well in the ear of an ambitious father, when applied to a young man whom he loves and esteems, but whom he believes to be poor. Tiburcio Arellanos would have met with a refusal from Don Augustin—softened, it is true, by affectionate words—but had not Fabian de Mediana a better chance of success?
“Will you tell me how Tiburcio Arellanos can be Fabian de Mediana?” asked Don Augustin, with more curiosity than anger. “Who gave you this information?”
“You were not present at the close of the stranger’s narrative,” replied Doña Rosarita, “or you would have heard that the young companion of the two brave hunters whose dangers he nobly shared, was no other than Tiburcio Arellanos, now become the Count Fabian de Mediana. To this day I am ignorant of how, alone and wounded, he quitted the hacienda, and by what circumstances he found these unexpected protectors—or what relationship exists between Tiburcio and the Duke de Armada. But this man, who knows, will tell you.”
“Let him be instantly sought,” said Don Augustin, quickly; and he called an attendant to whom he gave the order.
Don Augustin awaited with the greatest impatience, the return of Gayferos; but they sought him in vain. He had disappeared. We shall presently explain the motive of his departure. Almost at the same moment in which the haciendado and his daughter were informed of it, another attendant entered to announce that Tragaduros was dismounting in the court-yard of the hacienda.
The coincidence of the Senator’s return with the approaching arrival of Fabian, was one of those events in which chance, oftener than might be supposed, sports with the events of real life.
Rosarita, in order to secure an ally in her father, hastened to embrace him tenderly, and to testify her astonishment at a miracle, which had converted the adopted son of a gambusino into the heir of one of the most powerful families in Spain. After having launched this twofold dart against the Senator, the young girl vanished from the apartment, leaving her father alone.
Tragaduros entered like a man who feels that the announcement of his arrival is always welcome. His manner was that of a future kinsman, for he had obtained the father’s promise and the daughter’s consent, although that consent was only tacitly given. However, notwithstanding his self-satisfaction, and his confidence in the future, the Senator could not fail to remark the grave reserve of Don Augustin’s manner. He thought himself at liberty to remark it.
“Don Estevan de Arechiza, the Duke of Armada, is no more,” said the haciendado; “both you and I have lost a dear and noble friend.”
“What, dead?” cried the Senator, hiding his face with an embroidered cambric handkerchief. “Poor Don Estevan! I do not think I shall ever be able to console myself.”
His future, nevertheless, might not have been obscured by perpetual grief, for the regret he expressed was far from being in harmony with his most secret thoughts. While he acknowledged the many obligations he owed to Don Estevan, he could not help remembering that had he lived, he would have been compelled to spend in political intrigues the half of his wife’s marriage portion; half a million of money he must thus have thrown to the dogs. It is true, he said to himself, I shall neither be a count, marquis, or duke of any kind, but to my thinking, half a million of money is worth more than a title, and will multiply my pleasures considerably. This fatal event will besides hasten the period of my marriage. Perhaps after all Don Estevan’s death is not a misfortune. “Poor Don Estevan,” he continued aloud, “what an unexpected blow!”
Tragaduros had yet to learn that it might have been better for him had Don Estevan lived. We will leave him with the haciendado, and follow Gayferos—for perhaps the reader will be glad to hear from him again.
The adventurer had saddled his horse, and unseen by anybody had crossed the plain and again taken the road which led to the Presidio of Tubac.
The route which he followed for some time brought him in contact with few travellers, and when by chance some horseman appeared in the distance, Gayferos, as he passed him, exchanged an impatient salutation, but failed to recognise the one he sought.
The day was drawing towards a close, and it was at a late hour when Gayferos uttered a joyful exclamation on seeing three travellers advancing at a gallop.
These travellers were no others than the Canadian, Pepé, and Fabian de Mediana. The giant was mounted upon a strong mule, larger and more vigorous than the Mexican horses. Nevertheless this animal was somewhat out of proportion with the gigantic stature of the rider.
Fabian and Pepé rode two excellent coursers, which they had taken from the Indians.
The young man was greatly changed since the day when he arrived for the first time at the Hacienda del Venado.
Painful and indelible recollections had left their traces upon his pale and wasted cheeks, a few wrinkles furrowed his brow, though the brilliancy of his eye was heightened by the sorrowful reflection of the passion which consumed him. But perhaps in the eyes of a woman his pale and sickly appearance might render the young Count of Mediana still more handsome and interesting than was that of Tiburcio Arellanos.
Would not that countenance, ennobled by toil and travel, remind Doña Rosarita of the love for which she had every reason to feel proud and happy? Would it not tell of dangers overcome, and surround itself with a double halo of sacrifice and suffering?
As to the rough countenances of the hunters, sun, fatigue, and danger of every kind had left them unchanged. If the hot winds had bronzed their skin, six months more of the adventurous life to which they were accustomed left no trace upon their sunburnt features.
They testified no surprise on seeing the gambusino, but a lively curiosity was depicted in the glance of each. A look from Gayferos, however, soon satisfied them. That look doubtless assured them that all was as they wished. Fabian alone expressed some astonishment on seeing his old companion so near the Hacienda del Venado.
“Was if in order to precede us here that you came to take leave of us near Tubac?” asked Fabian.
“Doubtless—did I not tell you so?” replied Gayferos.
“I did not understand you thus,” said Fabian, who, without seeming to attach much importance to that which was said or done around him, relapsed into the melancholy silence which had become habitual to him.
Gayferos turned his horse’s head round, and the four travellers continued their journey in silence.
At the expiration of an hour, during which Gayferos and the Canadian only exchanged a few words in a low tone, and to which Fabian, always absorbed in thought, gave no attention, the recollections of a past, not very remote, crowded upon the memory of the three travellers. They were again crossing the plain which extends beyond El Salto de Agua, and a few minutes afterwards they reached the torrent itself which foams down perpetually between the rocks. A bridge, the same size as the former one, replaced that which had been precipitated into the gulf below by those men who now slept their last sleep in the valley of gold, the object of their ambition.
The Canadian here dismounted.
“Now, Fabian,” said he, “here Don Estevan was found; the three bandits (I except, however, poor Diaz, the tenor of the Indians) were there. See, here are still the prints of your horse’s hoofs—when he slipped from this rock, dragging you downwards in his fall. Ah! Fabian, my child, I can even now see the water foaming around you—even now hear the cry of anguish I uttered. What an impetuous young man you then were!”
“That I no longer am,” said Fabian, smiling sadly.
“Oh, no! at the present time your manner is imbued with the firm stoicism of an Indian warrior who smiles at the tortures of the stake. In the midst of these scenes your face is calm, yet I am convinced the recollections they recall to you must be harrowing in the extreme; is it not so, Fabian?”
“You are mistaken, my father,” replied Fabian; “my heart resembles this rock, where, though you say so, I no longer trace my horse’s hoofs; and my memory is mute as the echo of your own voice, which you seem still to hear. When, before suffering me to return and live forever removed from the inhabitants of yonder deserts, you required as a last trial that I should again behold a spot which might recall old recollections, I told you those recollections no longer existed.”
A tear dimmed the Canadian’s eye, but he concealed it by turning his back to Fabian as he remounted his mule.
The travellers then crossed the bridge formed of the trunks of trees.
“Do you trace upon this moss which covers the ground the print of my horse’s hoofs when I pursued Don Estevan and his troop?” asked Fabian of Bois-Rose. “No! the dead leaves of the past winter have obliterated them—the grass which sprung up after the rainy season has grown over them.”
“Ah! if I raised the leaves, if I tore up the grass, I should again discover their traces, Fabian; and if I searched the depth of your heart—”
“You would find nothing, I tell you,” interrupted Fabian with some impatience; “but I am mistaken,” he added, gently, “you would find a reminiscence of childhood, one of those in which you are associated, my father.”
“I believe it, Fabian, I believe it—you who have been the delight of my whole life; but I have told you that I will not accept your sacrifice until to-morrow at this hour, when you shall have seen all, even the breach in the old wall, over which you once sprung, wounded in body and spirit.”
A shudder, like that of the condemned on seeing the last terrible instrument of torture, passed through Fabian’s frame.
The travellers halted at length, in that part of the forest situated between the Salto de Agua and the hacienda, in the open space where Fabian had found in the Canadian and his comrade, friends whom God seemed to have sent to him from the extreme ends of the earth.
Now the shades of night no longer obscured the silent depths of the American forest—a silence in which there is something awful when the sun in its zenith sends forth burning rays like blades of crimson fire, when the flower of the lliana closes its chalice, when the stems of the grass drop languidly downwards, as though in search of nourishment, and the whole face of nature, silent and inanimate, appears buried in sleep. The distant roar of the cataract was the only sound which at this hour broke the stillness of the forest.
The travellers unsaddled, and having removed their horses’ bridles, fastened them at some distance off. As they had travelled all night to escape the heat of the sun, they determined to take their siesta under the shade of the trees.
Gayferos was the first who fell asleep. His affection for Fabian was not disturbed by any fears for the future. Pepé was not long in following his example. The Canadian only and Fabian did not close their eyes.
“You are not sleeping, Fabian,” said Bois-Rose, in a low voice.
“No, nor you. Why do you not take some rest, like our companions?”
“One cannot sleep, Fabian, in a spot consecrated by so many sacred memories,” replied the old hunter. “This place is rendered holy to me. Was it not here that, by the intervention of a miracle, I again found you in the heart of this forest, after having lost you upon the wide ocean? I should be ungrateful to the Almighty if I could forget this—even to obtain the rest which He has appointed for us.”
“I think as you do, my father, and listen to your words,” replied the young Count.
“Thanks, Fabian; thanks also to that God who ordained that I should find you with a heart so noble and so loving. See! here are still the remains of the fire near which I sat; here are the brands, still black, though they have been washed by the rain of an entire season. Here is the tree against which I leant on the happiest evening of my life, since it restored you to me; for now that I can again call you my son, each day of my existence has been fraught with happiness, until I learnt what I should have understood, that my affection for you was not that to which the young heart aspires.”
“Why so frequently allude to this subject, my father?” said Fabian, with that gentle submission which is more cutting than the bitterest reproach.
“As you will. Let us not again allude to that which may pain you; we shall speak of it after the trial to which I have submitted you.”
The father and son—for we may indeed call them so—now maintained a long silence, listening only to the voices of nature. The sun approached the horizon, a light breeze sprung up and rustled among the leaves; already hopping from branch to branch, the birds resumed their song, the insects swarmed in the grass, and the lowing of cattle was heard in the distance. It was the denizens of the forest who welcomed the return of evening.
The two sleepers awoke.
After a short and substantial repast, of which Gayferos had brought the materials from the Hacienda del Venado, the four travellers awaited in calm meditation the hour of their great trial.
Some time passed away before the azure sky above the open clearing was overcast.
Gradually, however, the light of day diminished on the approach of twilight, and then myriads of stars shone in the firmament, like sparks sown by the sun as he quitted the horizon. At length, as on that evening to which so many recollections belonged, when Fabian, wounded, reached the wood-rangers by their fire, the moon illumined the summits of the trees and the glades of the forest.
“Can we light a fire?” inquired Pepé.
“Certainly; for it may chance that we shall spend the night here,” 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 gratitude. 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 passes 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 space 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 God! 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 ennobled 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 assassin 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 Doña 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 passionately; 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 God 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!”
“Child, who implores pardon, when it is I who should ask it?” said Bois-Rose; “you were more generous than I, Fabian. Never did a lioness snatch her cub from the hands of the hunters, and carry it to her den, with a more savage love than I dragged you from the habitations of men to hide you in the desert. I was happy, because all my affections were centred in you; and I believed that you might also be so. You did not murmur; you sacrificed, unhesitatingly, all the treasures of your youth—a thousand times more precious than those of the Golden Valley. I did not intend it should be so, and it is I who have been selfish, and not generous, for if you had died of grief, I should have died also.”
“What do you mean?” cried Fabian.
“What I say, child. Who watched over your slumbers during long nights, to hear from your lips the secret wishes of your heart? It was I, who determined to accompany to this spot, Gayferos, whom at your intercession I saved from the hands of the Apaches. Who sent him to seek this beautiful and gracious lady, and learn if in her heart, she still treasured your memory? It was I still, my child, for your happiness is a thousand times more precious than mine. Who persuaded you to make this last trial? It was still I, my child, who knew that you must succumb to it. To-morrow I had said to you, I will accept your sacrifice; but Gayferos had even then read the most secret pages of this lady’s heart. Why do you ask my pardon, when I tell you it is I, who should ask yours?”
The Canadian, as he finished these words, opened his arms to Fabian, who eagerly rushed into his embrace.
“Oh, my father,” cried he, “so much happiness frightens me, for never was man happier than I.”
“Grief will come when God wills it,” said the Canadian, solemnly.
“But you, what will become of you?” asked Fabian, anxiously. “Your loss will be to me the only bitterness in my full cup of joy.”
“As God wills, my child,” answered the Canadian. “It is true, I cannot live in cities, but this dwelling, which will be yours, is on the borders of the desert. Does not infinity surround me here? I shall build with Pepé—Ho, Pepé,” said the hunter in a loud voice, “come and ratify my promise.”
Pepé and Gayferos came forward at the hunter’s summons.
“I and Pepé,” he continued, “will build a hut of the trunks and bark of trees upon the spot of ground where I found you again. We shall not always be at home, it is true, but perhaps some time hence should you wish to claim the name and fortune of your ancestors in Spain, you will find two friends ready to follow you to the end of the world. Come, my Fabian, I have no doubt that I shall be even happier than you, for I shall experience a double bliss in my happiness and yours.”
But why dwell longer upon such scenes? happiness is so transitory and impalpable that it will not bear either analysis or description.
“There remains but one obstacle now,” resumed the hunter. “This sweet lady’s father.”
“To-morrow he will expect his son,” interrupted Rosarita, who stood by, listening with singular interest to the dialogue.
“Then let me bless mine,” said the Canadian.
Fabian knelt before the hunter.
The latter removed his fur cap, and with moist eyes raised to the starry heavens, he said—
“Oh! my God! bless my son, and grant that his children may love him as he has been loved by old Bois-Rose.”
The following day the illustrious Senator returned in sadness to Arispe.
“I was sure,” he said, “that I should unceasingly mourn for poor Don Estevan. I might at least have possessed, besides my wife’s marriage portion, a title of honour and half a million of money. It is certainly a great misfortune that poor Don Estevan is dead.”
Sometime afterwards a hut made of the bark and trunks of trees was built in the forest glade so well-known to the reader. Often Fabian de Mediana, accompanied by Rosarita, to whom he was now united by the holy ties of marriage, performed a pilgrimage to the dwellers in the hut.
Perhaps at a later period one of those pilgrimages might be undertaken with the view of claiming the assistance of the two brave hunters in an expedition to the Golden Valley or to the coast of Spain; but that is a thing of the future. Let us for the present be content with saying, that if the happiness of this world is not a vain delusion, in truth it exists at the Hacienda del Venado, enjoyed by Fabian, Rosarita, and the brave Wood-Rangers—Pepé and Bois-Rose.
The End.