s footsteps and moving as silently as a Murhapa warrior tracking his
foe through the forest.

He was dressed similarly to the American, having the same style of
Panama hat, shirt and boots, and he carried a rifle in his hand. Being
of the same race, he ought to have been a friend, but when the bright
moonlight fell upon his face, it showed the countenance of a demon.

He was Burkhardt, an escaped convict, who had lived for five years
among the Murhapas, and he was seeking the life of Fred Ashman, who, in
his enchanting visions of love, never dreamed of the awful shadow
stealing upon him.

CHAPTER XXIV.

YOUNG LOVE'S DREAM.

What in all the world so sweet as young love's dream? It is the old,
old story, and yet it is as new and fresh and blissful to the soul as
it will be to the end of time, or until these natures of ours are
changed by the same Hand that framed them.

What more bewitching romance could cast its halo about the divine
passion than that which enshrined the affection of Fred Ashman for the
wonderful Ariel, the only child of the grim Haffgo, king of the
Murhapas?

He had met and chatted and exchanged glances with the beauties of his
own clime, and yet his heart remained unscathed. He reverenced the sex
to which his adored mother and sister belonged, and yet never had he
felt the thrill that stirred his nature to the profoundest depths, when
his eyes met those of the barbarian princess and the two smiled without
either uttering a word.

"What care I for the gold and the diamonds and the precious stones of
the Matto Grosso?" the ardent lover asked himself; "is not she the
Koh-i-noor of them all?--the one gem whose preciousness is worth more
than all the world?"

He was willing that the Professor and Jared Long should risk their
lives in searching for the enchanted lake, and the burning mountain
where such priceless wealth existed. Thousands of their kind had done
it before, and countless thousands would follow in their footsteps
through the generations to come.

But as for _him_, a new mission had broken upon his consciousness; he
had a sacred duty to perform. Somewhere, in this broad world, a human
soul is always waiting for its mate. Perchance it never comes, and the
weary one may be joined to that which heaven never intended it to be
joined, or it repines and goes to the grave unloved.

Fred Ashman was as sure as if he heard a voice from the stars, telling
him that Ariel, the daug