"He died," said Oran Gilbert--"he died that a villain might live; and you call that villain 'my countryman and brother!'" "No," said Hyland, with some of his wild brother's spirit; "I except _him_." "Then look to the left," continued Oran, with a glance of painful humiliation: "on the brook, and in a little bower, there is a second grave." "It is the grave of my poor wronged sister!" cried Hyland, impetuously. "Of your sister, and of ----. Ha, ha! Is not this a merry subject for two brothers to talk on! 'My countryman and brother' destroyed her and fled." "May heaven pardon him," cried Hyland; "but I cannot." "We buried her in secret, and in night, that none might look upon her shame, or upon ours," said the refugee; "and that night came into the world her brother, whom we called Hyland, that we might better remember her destroyer." "Oran! Oran!" "Your mother," continued the elder brother, with a cruel pertinacity, "loved the girl well, and died of sorrow for her. My 'countrymen and brothers' pointed at our shame; they visited the sins of the children upon the father, and drove him forth in his old age, a childless and ruined man." "They did," said the youth; "he came to the island, and he died in my arms." "My 'countrymen and brothers,'" added Oran, with a ferocious sneer, "have left the oldest and youngest to weep for the others.--Here is the commission----We will avenge them!" For a moment Hyland seemed to share the fire of the outcast; for a moment he grasped the parchment which the other had put into his hand. His face flushed,--then turned pale; he hesitated,--faltered; the badge of honour fell to the earth; and clasping his hands together, he looked at Oran imploringly, and said, "My father died in my arms, and charged me, with his last breath, to forget that he had been wronged." "It was the weakness of his death-hour," said Oran. "He bade me," continued the youth, "leave his enemies to God, and the destroyer of his peace to his fate." "Look at his fate!" cried the refugee: "wealth surrounds him, and he is envied for his happiness; while you are ashamed of your father's name, and I am poor, and abhorred, and miserable." "We will go to the island, and forget"---- "Will you have the commission?" said Oran, abruptly. "You have youth, talents, education and fortune,--and will rise. This commission is to serve among the royal refugees; but if you carry it bravely at the first bout, I have the General's word you shall be transferred to the line, with a fair field for promotion." "Look, Oran," said the youth, manfully, "I will not take the commission, nor will I trust your commander's promises. You have served him from the beginning; and none have served him better. How has he rewarded you?--You are still a captain of refugees!" A shadow of humiliation passed over the face of the renegade; but he answered without emotion.