do to come and visit
him, and to bring his lady with him. Hurtado, suspecting the snare, and
yet fearing to offend the cacique, excused himself courteously on
the score of his soldier's duty; and the savage, mad with desire and
disappointment, began plotting against Hurtado's life.

"So went on several weeks, till food grew scarce, and Don Hurtado and
Don Ruiz Moschera, with fifty soldiers, were sent up the river on a
foraging party. Mangora saw his opportunity, and leapt at it forthwith.

"The tower, ladies, as I have heard from those who have seen it, stands
on a knoll at the meeting of the two rivers, while on the land side
stretches a dreary marsh, covered with tall grass and bushes; a fit
place for the ambuscade of four thousand Indians, which Mangora, with
devilish cunning, placed around the tower, while he himself went boldly
up to it, followed by thirty men, laden with grain, fruit, game, and all
the delicacies which his forests could afford.

"There, with a smiling face, he told the unsuspecting Lara his sorrow
for the Spaniards' want of food; besought him to accept the provision he
had brought, and was, as he had expected, invited by Lara to come in and
taste the wines of Spain.

"In went he and his thirty fellow-bandits, and the feast continued,
with songs and libations, far into the night, while Mangora often looked
round, and at last boldly asked for the fair Miranda: but she had shut
herself into her lodging, pleading illness.

"A plea, fair ladies, which little availed that hapless dame, for no
sooner had the Spaniards retired to rest, leaving (by I know not what
madness) Mangora and his Indians within, than they were awakened by the
cry of fire, the explosion of their magazine, and the inward rush of the
four thousand from the marsh outside.

"Why pain your gentle ears with details of slaughter? A few fearful
minutes sufficed to exterminate my bewildered and unarmed countrymen, to
bind the only survivors, Miranda (innocent cause of the whole tragedy)
and four other women with their infants, and to lead them away in
triumph across the forest towards the Indian town.

"Stunned by the suddenness of the evils which had passed, and still
more by the thought of those worse which were to come (as she too
well foresaw), Miranda travelled all night through the forest, and was
brought in triumph at day-dawn before the Indian king to receive her
doom. Judge of her astonishment, when, on looking up, she saw t