He then stepped on a mass of intertwined lianas, which extended from one bank to the other, and formed a natural bridge. This bridge, apparently so slight, was firm, and though it oscillated under the traveller's footsteps, he crossed it in a few seconds. He had scarce reached the other bank, when a girl emerged from a clump of trees which concealed her.
"At last!" she said, as she ran up to him: "oh! I was afraid you would not come, Don Pablo."
"Ellen," the young man answered, with his whole soul in his glance, "death alone would keep me away."
The traveller was Don Pablo Zarate; the girl, Ellen, Red Cedar's daughter.[1]
"Come," she said.
The Mexican followed her, and they walked on for some time without exchanging a word. When they had passed the chaparral which bordered the river, they saw a short distance before them a wretched jacal, which leant solitary and silent against a rock.
"There is my home," the maiden said, with a sad smile.
Don Pablo sighed, but made no reply, and they continued to walk in the direction of the jacal, which they soon reached.
"Sit down, Don Pablo," the maiden went on, as she offered her comrade a stool, on which he sank. "I am alone; my father and two brothers went off this morning at sunrise."
"Are you not afraid," Don Pablo answered, "of remaining thus alone in the desert, exposed to innumerable dangers, so far from all help?"