As the days of captivity passed the strictness of their detention was relaxed and they were permitted greater freedom of action. As a result they met each other more frequently and under less restraint. But this growing leniency in the cacique had its limits: they might converse, but they were warned against indulging in any of the fond caresses of love. Jealousy still burned in his soul, and if Miranda would not become his, he was resolved that no one else should enjoy the evidence of her affection. The situation was a painful one. Husband and wife, as Hurtado and Miranda were, they continued lovers as well, and it was not easy to repress the feelings that moved them. Prudence bade them avoid any show of love, and they resolved to obey its dictates; but prudence is weak where love commands, and in one fatal moment Siripa surprised them clasped in each other’s arms and indulging in the ardent kisses of love. Filled with wild jealousy at the sight and carried away by ungovernable fury at their contempt of his authority and their daring disregard of his feelings, he ordered them both to instant execution. Hurtado’s old sentence was renewed: he was bound to a tree and his body pierced with arrows. As for Miranda, she was sentenced by the jealous and furious savage to a more painful death, that of the flames. Yet painful as it was, the loyal wife doubtless preferred it to yielding to the passion of the chief, and as a quick means of rejoining in soul life her lover and husband. Thus ends the most romantic and tragical story of love and faith that the early annals of America have to show, and the fate of the faithful Miranda has become a classic in the love-lore of the America of the south. LANTARO, THE BOY HERO OF THE ARAUCANIANS. The river Biobio, in Southern Chili, was for centuries the boundary between liberty and oppression in South America. South of it lay the land of the Araucanians, that brave and warlike people who preserved their independence against the whites, the only Indian nation in America of which this can be said. Valorous and daring as were the American Indians, their arms and their arts were those of the savage, and the great multitude of them were unable to stand before the weapons and the discipline of their white invaders. But such was not the case with the valiant Araucanians. From the period of Almagro, the companion of Pizarro and the first invader of Chili, down to our own days these bold Americans fought for and retained their independence, holding the Biobio as their national frontier, and driving army after army from their soil. Not until 1882 did they consent to become citizens of Chili, and then of their own free will, and they still retain their native habits and their pride in their pure blood.