ics of Don Mariano, who, although unseen by
the Captain, were at that moment only fifty paces distant, screened
behind the bushes that grew around the glade in which they had encamped.

The apparition, although it at first startled Don Cornelio, did not
frighten him so much as it had the domestics; for, by the light of the
moon, he was enabled to recognise the figure as that of his attendant,
Costal. The Captain, moreover, saw--what, from their position, was
invisible to the people in Don Mariano's camp--another human figure,
naked like the first, but differing from it in the colour of the skin,
which was black as ebony.

Both having passed through the reeds, plunged at once into the open
water of the lake; and, swimming off towards the enchanted mountain,
were soon lost to the eyes of Don Cornelio, as well as to those of the
affrighted attendants of Don Mariano.

While the latter remained under the full conviction that they had seen
the Indian who, for five hundred years, had been vainly searching for
his heart, Don Cornelio knew that the two adventurers were his own
followers, Costal and Clara.

From the direction they had taken through the water, he divined that it
was their object to reach the mountain island, there, no doubt, to
practise their superstitious ceremonial.

Although somewhat disappointed at being deprived of a spectacle he had
felt curious to witness, he still remained on his perch upon the tree.
His apprehension of being pursued by the bandits of Arroyo had not yet
forsaken him; and in such a contingency, he believed that he would be
safer among the branches than upon the ground. He could watch for
Costal and Clara coming back through the water, and then rejoin them as
they returned to take possession of their horses, which were still
visible to him upon his elevated post.

For a short time he remained in his position without hearing any noise
in particular, or seeing anything calculated to alarm him. Then a sound
reached his ears that came from a direction opposite to that in which
lay the lake. It was a booming sound, like the report of a cannon--
shortly after followed by another and another of precisely similar
intonation.

Don Cornelio had no suspicion that at that very moment the hacienda of
San Carlos was being attacked by the garrison of Del Valle, and that the
noise he heard was the report of the howitzer battering in the gates of
the building.

Although at first rendered uneasy