"In the name of Heaven, my beloved daughter," Don Sylva urged, "come! We have not a moment to lose; in a few seconds our retreat may be perhaps cut off. Come, I implore you!"
"No, my father!" she said, shaking her head. "I am resigned: whatever may happen, I repeat to you, I will not leave this spot."
"It is madness," the hacendero exclaimed in great grief. "You wish to die, then?"
"What matter to me?" she said sorrowfully. "Am I not condemned in every way? Heaven is my witness, father, that I would gladly die to escape the marriage prepared for me."
"What do you care, father, whether I fall into the hands of Pagan savages today, when tomorrow you would surrender me with your own hands to a man I detest?"
"Speak not to me thus, daughter. Besides, the moment is very badly chosen, it seems to me, for a discussion like this. Come, the shouts are growing more furious; it will soon be too late."
"Go, if you think proper," she said resolutely. "I shall remain here, whatever may happen."
"As it is so, as you obstinately resist me, I will employ force to compel your obedience."
The girl threw her left arm round the trunk of a cedar tree, and looking with intense resolution at her father, exclaimed,--
"Do so if you dare, O my father! But I warn you that, at the first step you take toward me, that will happen which you want to avoid. I will utter such piercing shrieks that they must reach the ears of the Pagans, who will run up."
Don Sylva stopped in hesitation: he knew his daughter's firm and determined character, and that she would at once put this threat in execution. A few minutes elapsed, during which father and daughter stood face to face, not uttering a word, or making even a gesture.
Suddenly the branches were noisily parted, yielding a passage to two men, or rather two demons, who, rushing with panther bounds on the hacendero, hurled him to the ground. Before Don Sylva was able to recognise the enemies who attacked him so unexpectedly by the pale beams of the stars, he was gagged and bound, while a handkerchief twisted round his head hid from him all external objects, and prevented him seeing what his daughter's fate might be. The latter, at this sudden attack, uttered a cry of terror, at once prudently checked, for she had recognised Don Martial.