By the feeble moonlight that penetrates the thick foliage of forest trees, a man was making his way through the woods. His movement was slow but assured. From time to time, as if to get his bearings, he whistled an air, to which another whistler in the distance replied by repeating it.

At last, after struggling long against the many obstacles a virgin forest opposes to the march of man, and most obstinately at night, he arrived at a little clearing, bathed in the light of the moon in its first quarter. Scarcely had he entered it when another man came carefully out from behind a great rock, a revolver in his hand.

“Who are you?” he demanded with authority in Tagalo.

“Is old Pablo with you?” asked the newcomer tranquilly; “if so, tell him Elias is searching for him.”

“You are Elias?” said the other, with a certain respect, yet keeping his revolver cocked. “Follow me!”

They penetrated a cavern, the guide warning the helmsman when to lower his head, when to crawl on all fours. After a short passage they arrived at a sort of room, dimly lighted by pitch torches, where twelve or fifteen men, dirty, ragged, and sinister, were talking low among themselves. His elbows resting on a stone, an old man of sombre face sat apart, looking toward the smoky torches. It was a cavern of tulisanes. When Elias arrived, the men started to rise, but at a gesture from the old man they remained quiet, contenting themselves with examining the newcomer.

“Is it thou, then?” said the old chief, his sad eyes lighting a little at sight of the young man.

“And you are here!” exclaimed Elias, half to himself.

The old man bent his head in silence, making at the same time a sign to the men, who rose and went out, not without taking the helmsman’s measure with their eyes.

“Yes,” said the old man to Elias when they were alone, “six months ago I gave you hospitality in my home; now it is I who receive compassion from you. But sit down and tell me how you found me.”

“As soon as I heard of your misfortunes,” replied Elias slowly, “I set out, and searched from mountain to mountain. I’ve gone over nearly two provinces.” After a short pause in which he tried to read the old man’s thoughts in his sombre face, he went on:

“I have come to make you a proposition. After vainly trying to find some representative of the family which caused the ruin of my own, I have decided to go North, and live among the savage tribes. Will you leave this life you are beginning, and come with me? Let me be a son to you?”

The old man shook his head.

“At my age,” he said, “when one has taken a desperate resolution it is final. When such a man as I, who passed his youth and ripe age laboring to assure his future and that of his children, who submitted always to the will of superiors, whose conscience is clear—when such a man, almost on the border of the tomb, renounces all his past, it is because after ripe reflection he concludes that there is no such thing as peace. Why go to a strange land to drag out my miserable days? I had two sons, a daughter, a home, a fortune. I enjoyed consideration and respect; now I am like a tree stripped of its branches, bare and desolate. And why? Because a man dishonored my daughter; because my sons wished to seek satisfaction from this man, placed above other by his office; because this man, fearing them, sought their destruction and accomplished it. And I have survived; but if I did not know how to defend my sons, I shall know how to avenge them. The day my band is strong enough, I shall go down into the plain and wipe out my vengeance and my life in fire! Either this day will come or there is no God!”

The old man rose, and, his eyes glittering, his voice cavernous, he cried, fastening his hands in his long hair:

“Malediction, malediction upon me, who held the avenging hands of my sons! I was their assassin!”

“I understand you,” said Elias; “I too have a vengeance to satisfy; and yet, from fear of striking the innocent, I choose to forego that.”

“You can; you are young; you have not lost your last hope. I too, I swear it, would not strike the innocent. You see this wound? I got it rather than harm a cuadrillero who was doing his duty.”

“And yet,” said Elias, “if you carry out your purpose, you will bring dreadful woes to our unhappy country. If with your own hands you satisfy your vengeance, your enemies will take terrible reprisals—not from you, not from those who are armed, but from the people, who are always the ones accused. When I knew you in other days, you gave me wise counsels: will you permit me——”

The old man crossed his arms and seemed to attend.

“SeÑor,” continued Elias, “I have had the fortune to do a great service to a young man, rich, kind of heart, upright, wishing the good of his country. It is said he has relations at Madrid; of that I know nothing, but I know he is the friend of the governor-general. What do you think of interesting him in the cause of the miserable and making him their voice?”

The old man shook his head.

“He is rich, you say. The rich think only of increasing their riches. Not one of them would compromise his peace to go to the aid of those who suffer. I know it, I who was rich myself.”

“But he is not like the others. And he is a young man about to marry, who wishes the tranquillity of his country for the sake of his children’s children.”

“He is a man, then, who is going to be happy. Our cause is not that of fortunate men.”

“No, but it is that of men of courage!”

“True,” said the old man, seating himself again. “Let us suppose he consents to be our mouthpiece. Let us suppose he wins the captain-general, and finds at Madrid deputies who can plead for us; do you believe we shall have justice?”

“Let us try it before we try measures of blood,” said Elias. “It must surprise you that I, an outlaw too, and young and strong, propose pacific measures. It is because I see the number of miseries which we ourselves cause, as well as our tyrants. It is always the unarmed who pay the penalty.”

“And if nothing result from our steps?”

“If we are not heard, if our grievances are made light of, I shall be the first to put myself under your orders.”

The old man embraced Elias, a strange light in his eyes.

“I accept the proposition,” he said; “I know you will keep your word. I will help you to avenge your parents; you shall help me to avenge my sons!”

“Meanwhile, seÑor, you will do nothing violent.”

“And you will set forth the wrongs of the people; you know them. When shall I have the response?”

“In four days send me a man to the lake shore of San Diego. I will tell him the decision, and name the person on whom I count.”

“Elias will be chief when Captain Pablo is fallen,” said the old man. And he himself accompanied the helmsman out of the cave.