Fabian’s countenance revealed the anguish of his feelings.
“Why then so soon pollute a life which is scarcely begun? Why refuse to follow a course which the unlooked-for favour of Providence opens to you? Here you are poor, and without connections. God restores you to your family, and, at the same moment, confers wealth upon you. The inheritance of your race has not been squandered by me. I have for twenty years borne the name of Mediana, at the head of the Spanish nobles, and I am ready to restore it to you with all the honours I have conferred upon it. Accept then a fortune which I joyfully restore to you, for the isolation of my life is burthensome to me; but do not purchase it by a crime, for which an imaginary act of justice cannot absolve you, and which you will repent to your last hour.”
Fabian replied, “A judge who presides at his tribunal must not listen to the voice of nature. Supported by his conscience, and the service he renders to society, he may pity the criminal, though his duty requires that he shall condemn him. In this solitude, these two men and myself represent human justice. Refute the crime attributed to you, Don Antonio, and I shall be the happiest of us two; for though I shudder to accuse you, I cannot escape the fatal mission which heaven has imposed upon me.”
“Consider well, Fabian, and remember that it not pardon, but oblivion, for which I sue. Thanks to that oblivion, it rests with you to become, in my adopted son, the princely heir of the house of Mediana. After my death my title will expire.”
As he listened to these words the young man became deadly pale; but spurning in his heart the temptation held out to him, Fabian closed his ears to that voice which offered him so large a share of the riches of this world, as though he had but heard the light whispers of the breeze amid the foliage of the trees.
“Oh, Count Mediana, why did you kill my mother?” cried Fabian, covering his face with his hands; then, glancing towards the poignard planted in the sand, “My lord of Armada,” he added, solemnly, “the poignard is without a shadow!”
Don Antonio trembled in spite of himself, as he then recalled the prophetic threat, which twenty years before the Countess de Mediana had compelled him to hear.
“Perhaps,” she had said, “the God whom you blaspheme will ordain, that in the heart of a desert, untrodden by the foot of man, you shall find an accuser, a witness, a judge, and an executioner.”
Accuser, witness, and judge were all before him, but who was to be the executioner? However, nothing was wanting for the accomplishment of the dreadful prophecy.
A noise of branches, suddenly torn apart, was heard at this moment.