"Welcome, death! But anywhere save here!"
He trampled on the Indian corpse in his flight, and plunged into the thorns as if bent on rending himself to shreds. He must have rushed madly on for half an hour, the venom firing his thinned blood till his veins ran flames, but as the wound on his left side affected that portion of the frame disproportionately, he described a circle, and in the end had almost returned to the spot where Dolores still rested in a swoon.
At last, stumbling, groping, he fell, only to crawl a little way, then, a slight mound opposing his hands and knees, he rolled upon it. His head appeared to have been cleared by the Mazeppa-like course, and he was, at least, conscious of the raised grass reminding him of a funeral mound.
"A grave!" he breathed, dashing the sweat out of his eyes, "Yes, a grave here will the last of the Bustamentes die!"
He stretched out at full length, he folded his arms, one of them palsied already, and was beginning to pray, when his tone changed to joy, or at least, profound hopefulness. He fell over on his side, then rose to his knees, ran his band over the mound eagerly, and cried:
"God of mercy, deceive me not! The grave I coveted, is it not a cache? Thank God!"
[CHAPTER III.]
THE PIRATE'S BEQUEST.
The wanderer whose careless progress through the brake sufficiently clearly revealed that he was a stranger of a bold heart and contempt for customs different from his own, was, in fact, one of those Englishmen who seem born to illustrate, in the nature of exceptions, the formal character of his race.