“The youthful maiden then said to me, ‘I am not the Virgin of the last Loves. Are you a Christian?’ I replied that I had not betrayed the genii of my cottage. At these words the Indian made an involuntary movement, and said, ‘I pity you for being merely a wicked idolator. My mother made me a Christian; my name is Atala, and I am the daughter of Simaghan of the Golden Bracelets, the chief of the warriors of this troop. We are going to Apalachucla, where you will be burnt.’ Having uttered these words, Atala rose and took her departure.” Here. Chactas was compelled to interrupt his story. A crowd of souvenirs rushed into his soul; his closed eyes inundated his furrowed cheeks with tears, just as two springs, hidden in the profound depths of the earth, reveal themselves by the waters they send filtering between the rocks. “Oh, my son,” said he, after a long pause, “you perceive that Chactas is not very wise, notwithstanding his reputation for wisdom. Alas! my dear child, although men can no longer see, they can still weep! Several days passed. Every evening the old man’s daughter came to converse with me. Sleep had fled from my eyes, and Atala was in my heart like the remembrance of the resting-place of my fathers. “On the seventeenth day of our march, about the time when the ephemeran rises from the waters, we entered upon the grand savannah of Alachua. The plain is surrounded with hills, which, receding behind one another, are covered, as they appear to touch the clouds, with ranges of forests of palm-trees, citron-trees, magnolias and oaks. The chief uttered the cry of arrival, and the troop encamped at the foot of a hill-side. I was left at some distance, on the border of one of those natural wells so famous in the Floridas, attached to the trunk of a tree, and guarded by a warrior who watched me with impatience. I had passed but some moments in this place when Atala appeared beneath the liquid ambers of the fountain. ‘Hunter,’ said she to the Muscogulgan hero, ‘if you would like to chase the stag, I will guard the prisoner.’ The warrior jumped for joy at this offer of the chiefs daughter, and at once hurried from the top of the hill, and directed his steps towards the plain.