"I love no one."
"No one?" repeated the stranger, shuddering; "Then I pity you, for you must be most unhappy."
The unknown trembled; a feverish glow stole over his face; but soon recovering himself, he exclaimed:
"Now let me go."
"No; not before I learn who you are."
"Who I am! Have I not already told you? A wild beast; a being with only the semblance of humanity, with a hatred towards all men which nothing can ever appease. Pray to God you may never again encounter me on your path. I am like the raven—the sight of me foretells evil. Adieu!"
"Adieu!" murmured the stranger; "And may God have mercy on you, and not visit your cruelty upon you!"
Just at this moment a voice, feeble, but in its sad modulations sweet and melodious as the notes of the centzontle, the American nightingale, rose through the stillness.
"My father, my dear father!" it uttered. "Where are you? Do not abandon me."
"I am here, I am here," exclaimed the stranger tenderly, as he turned quickly to run to her who thus called him.
A cloud passed over the face of the unknown at the sound of these melodious accents; his blue eye flashed like the lightning. He placed his hand on his heart, trembling as if he had received an electric shock.
After a short hesitation, he forced his horse to make a sudden bound forward, and placing his hand on the stranger's shoulder:
"Whose voice is that?" he asked in singular accents.
"The voice of my daughter, who is dying, and calls me."
"Dying?" stammered the unknown, strangely moved. "She!"
"My father, my father!" repeated the girl in a voice which grew weaker and weaker.
The unknown raised himself to his full height; his face assumed an expression of indomitable energy.
"She shall not die!" said he in a low voice. "Come!"
They rejoined the group.
The young girl was stretched upon the ground, with her eyes closed, her face pale as a corpse; the feeble gasps of her breathing alone evincing that life had not completely left her.
The persons surrounding her watched her in profound sadness, while tears rolled silently down their bronzed cheeks.
"Oh!" cried the father, falling on his knees beside the young girl, seizing her hand and covering it with kisses, while his face was inundated with tears; "My fortune—my life—to him who will save my cherished child!"
The unknown had dismounted, and observed the girl with sombre and pensive eye. At last, after several minutes of this mute contemplation, he turned towards the stranger.
"What ails this girl?" he asked abruptly.
"Alas! An incurable ailment: she has been bitten by a grass snake."
The unknown frowned till his eyebrows nearly met together.
"Then she is lost indeed," said his deep voice.
"Lost! O Heavens! My daughter, my dearest daughter!"
"Yes; unless—" then, arousing himself: "How long is it since she was bitten?"
"Scarcely an hour."
The face of the unknown lighted up. He remained silent for a moment, during which the bystanders anxiously bent towards him, awaiting with impatience the opinion he would probably pronounce.
"Scarcely an hour?" said he at last. "Then she may be saved."
The stranger uttered a sigh of joy.
"You will answer for it?" he cried.
"I?" returned the unknown, shrugging; his shoulders; "I will answer for nothing, except that I will attempt impossibilities for the chance of restoring her to you."
"Oh, save her, save her!" eagerly exclaimed the father; "And, whoever you may be, I will bless you."
"It matters not to me what you may do. I do not try to save this girl for your sake; and, whatever may be the motives inducing me, I exempt you from all feelings of gratitude."
"You may possibly harbour such thoughts; but for myself—"
"Enough," rudely broke in the unknown; "we have already lost too much time in idle words; let us make haste, if we would not be too late."
All were silent.
The unknown looked around.
We have already said that the strangers had halted at the edge of the forest; over their heads the last trees of the covert expanded their mighty branches.
Approaching the trees, the unknown examined them carefully, apparently in search of something he could not find.
All of a sudden, he uttered a cry of joy; and, unsheathing the long knife fastened to his right knee, he cut a branch from a creeper, and returned to the strangers, who were anxiously watching his proceedings.
"Here," said he to one of the party, who looked like a peon (a serf), "strip all the leaves from this branch, and pound them. Be quick; every second is worth a century to her whom we wish to save."
The peon set himself actively to the allotted task.
Then the unknown turned to the father:
"In what part of the body has this child been bitten?"
"A little below the left ankle."
"Has she much courage?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Answer! Time presses."
"The poor child is quite worn out; she is very weak."
"Then we must hesitate no longer; the operation must be performed."
"An operation!" cried the stranger, affrighted.
"Would you rather she should die?"
"Is this operation indispensable?"
"It is: we have already lost too much time."
"Then perform it. God grant you may succeed!"
The girl's leg was horribly swollen; the part round the serpent's bite, terribly tumefied, was already taking a greenish hue.
"Alas," muttered the unknown, "there is not a moment to spare. Hold the child so that she cannot stir while I perform the operation."
In these last words the voice of the unknown had assumed such an accent of command, that the strangers obeyed without hesitation.
The former seated himself on the ground, took the limb of the girl upon his knee, and made his preparations. Luckily the moon shone at this moment so clearly, that her vivid rays flooded the landscape, and everything was almost as visible as in broad daylight.
When the girl had first felt the bite, she had immediately, and happily for herself, torn off her silk stocking. The unknown grasped the blade of his knife an inch from the point, and, lowering his brow with terrible determination, buried the point in the wound, and made a cruciform incision about six lines deep, and more than an inch long.
The poor child must have felt terrible anguish; for she gave utterance to a dreadful scream, and twisted herself about nervously.
"Hold her tight, cuerpo de Cristo!" shouted the unknown in a voice of thunder, while with admirable coolness and skill he pressed the lips of the wound, so as to force out the black and decomposing blood it contained; "And now the leaves—the leaves!"
The peon ran up.
The unknown took the leaves, parted asunder the lips of the wound, and gently, carefully expressed their juice on the palpitating