"Oh!" Leon exclaimed, who had felt his heart quiver; "it is frightful!"
"What shall I say, then?" Diego asked in his turn; "I who am the last of the descendants of Tahi-Mari!"
At this unexpected revelation Leon started; he looked at Diego, and understood that there was in this man's heart a hatred so deeply rooted, and, above all, so long repressed, that on the day when it broke out no power in the world would be strong enough to check the terrible effects of its explosion. He hung his head, for he knew not what to reply to this man who had to avenge such blood-stained recollections. Diego took his friend's hand, and remarking the emotion he had produced, added—
"I have told you, brother, what the ancestors of Don Juan de Souza y Soto-Mayor made mine suffer, and your heart has bounded with indignation, because you are loyal and brave; but what you do not yet know is that the descendants of that family have faithfully followed the conduct of the murderers of Tahi-Mari. Oh! there are strange fatalities in a man's life! One day—and that day is close at hand—you shall know the details of the existence which I have led, and the sufferings which I have endured without a murmur; but at the present day I will only speak of those of my race; afterwards I will speak of myself."
While uttering the last words, a flash of joy like that which a tiger feels when it holds a quivering prey under its claws passed into the half-breed's eyes. He continued—
"My father died a victim to the cruelty of the Spaniards, who put him to death because he dreamed of the independence of his country; his brother followed him to the tomb, weeping for his loss."
"Diego! God has cruelly tried thee."
"I had a mother," Diego went on, with a slight tremor in his voice; "she was the object of my father's dearest affections, and was young and lovely. One day when she left the mountain to visit my father, who was expiating within the walls of Valparaíso prison his participation in a movement which had broken out among the Araucanos, she met on the road a brilliant Spanish cavalier who wore a lieutenant's epaulettes."
"The Spaniard fixed upon her an impassioned glance; she was alarmed, and tried to fly, but the horseman prevented her, and in spite of her prayers and supplications, she could not liberate herself from the villain's arms. On the morrow Lieutenant Don Juan de Soto-Mayor was able to boast among his friends, the noble chiefs of the Spanish army, that he had possessed the chaste wife of Tahi-Mari the Indian."
"Yes, it was again a Soto-Mayor. This accursed name has ever hovered over the head of each member of my family, to crush it under punishment, sorrow, shame, or humiliation. Each time that one of us has reddened American soil with his blood, it was a Soto-Mayor that shed it. Each time that a member of this family met a member of mine, one was the executioner, the other the victim."