"If ever you see or hear anything connected with me, believe nothing, feel surprised at nothing; say to yourself that I am acting on behalf of our common vengeance, for that alone will be true."
Don Stefano shook his head, and said:
"You are very young, child, for so rude a task."
"Heaven will help me, uncle," she replied, with a flashing glance; "the task is just and holy, for I desire to punish my father's assassins."
"Well," he continued, "your will be done: as you have said, it is a holy task, and I have no right to prevent you accomplishing it."
"Thanks, uncle," the girl said, feelingly; "and now, while I pray at my father's tomb, do you fetch me your horse, that I may set out without delay."
Bloodson retired without answering, and the girl fell on her knees at the foot of the cross. Half an hour later, after tenderly embracing Don Stefano, she mounted the horse, and started at a gallop in the direction of the Far West. Bloodson followed her as long as it was possible for him to see her in the darkness, and, when she had disappeared, he fell on the tomb on his knees, muttering in a hollow voice:
"Will she succeed? Who knows?" he added with an accent impossible to describe.
He prayed till day, but with the first beams of the sun he joined his comrades, and returned with them to the Far West.