"No, her friend," the hunter remarked, with a melancholy accent, and drawing from his bosom the necklace Quoniam had torn from the Scalper during the fight in Galveston Bay, he said with supreme majesty, "James Watt,[2] embrace your daughter; Carmela, embrace your father."
"Oh!" the wounded man exclaimed, "My heart did not deceive me, then?"
"My father, my father, bless me!" the maiden murmured, falling on her knees.
White Scalper, or Major Watt, drew himself up as if he had received an electric shock, and laid his hands on the head of the kneeling girl.
"Bless you, my child!" he said; then after a moment of silence, he muttered in an almost indistinct voice, "I had a son too."
"He is dead," the hunter answered, as he looked sorrowfully at the Jaguar.
"May Heaven pardon him!" the old man muttered. And falling back, he breathed his last sigh.
"My friend," Carmela said to the hunter, "you, whom I no longer dare to call my father, what do you order me to do in the presence of this corpse?"
"Live!" the Canadian answered hoarsely, as he pointed to a horseman who was coming up at full speed, "for you love and are beloved; life is scarce beginning for you, and you may still be happy."
The rider was Colonel Melendez.