"Oh, no, father."
"Very good, so now sit down by my side and listen."
"Speak, speak, father," she exclaimed eagerly, as she took the seat allotted her.
"You seem to take great interest in Captain Melendez, my child?"
"I, father!" she exclaimed with a start of surprise.
"Hang it! I fancy a young lady must feel a lively interest in a person, to take such a step for his sake as you have done."
The maiden became serious.
"Father," she said a moment later with that little, resolute tone spoilt children know so well how to assume; "I could not tell you why I acted as I did; I swear that it was against my will, I was mad; the thought that the Captain and the Jaguar were about to engage in a mortal combat, made me chill at heart; and yet I assure you, now that I am cool, I question myself in vain to discover the reason which urged me to intercede with you to prevent that combat."
The hunter shook his head.
"All that is not clear, Niña," he replied; "I do not at all understand your arguments. Hang it! I am only a poor woodranger, possessing no more learning than I have drawn from the great scenes of nature I constantly have before my eyes, and a woman's heart is to me a closed book, in which I could not decipher a line. Still, girl, believe me, take care, and do not play imprudently with weapons whose strength and mechanism you are ignorant of; though the antelope be so light and active when it is leaping from rock to rock on the verge of precipices, the moment arrives when it grows giddy, its head turns, and it rolls into the abyss—I have often seen similar catastrophes in the forests. Take care, my girl, take care, and believe in the old hunter's experience."