“Oh! no, no! she is dead! I knew it; I had a presentiment of it! O merciful Saviour! dead, my Marianita dead!”
After a moment, becoming more calm, the dying man continued:—
“What better fate could I have wished for her? She has escaped dishonour at the hands of these pitiless brigands, and I am about to die myself. Yes, friend! death is now sweeter to me than life: for it will bring me to her whom I love more than myself.”
And like those who, calmly dying, arrange everything as if for some ordinary ceremonial, the young man laid his head upon the pillow; and then stretching out his hands, composed the coverlet around him—leaving it open at one side, as if for the funereal couch of her whom he would never see more.
Don Cornelio, turning away from the painful spectacle, advanced towards the lake, making signs for Costal to follow him.
“Come this way,” he said, “and you shall see how much truth there is in your pagan superstitions.”
Costal made no objection: for he had already begun to mistrust the evidence of his own senses; and both proceeded together towards the spot where the torch-bearers had halted.
A white robe, torn by the thorns of the thicket, stained with blood, and bedraggled by the greenish scum of the water, enveloped the lifeless form of the young wife, whom the Indians had already deposited upon a couch of reeds. Some green leaves that hung over her head appeared to compose her last parure.
“She is beautiful as the Syren of the dishevelled hair,” said Costal, as he stood gazing upon the prostrate form, “beautiful as Matlacuezc! Poor Don Mariano!” continued he, recognising the daughter of his old master, “he is far from suspecting that he has now only one child!”
Saying this the Indian walked away from the spot, his head drooping forward over his breast, and apparently absorbed in painful meditation.