"Hold! hold, woman, I entreat!" cried the Spaniard, "you know all! How you have acquired that knowledge, save through some diabolical agency, I know not; for the door of the chamber was secured by a lock not easily tampered with, and those within were not the men to betray secrets. But, no matter, you know all! Why have you kept silence for thirteen years?" "We women are tacticians, Don Juan. I had a motive for my silence!" "And you speak now--?" "Because I think it is time to speak." Don Juan paced the apartment backward and forward with folded arms, and his head bent upon his breast. Presently pausing before Pauline Corsi's embroidery frame, he said in a hoarse whisper: "Do you mean to betray me?" "No!" "Why, then, tell me all this?" "Because I would ask the reward of thirteen years' silence." "And that reward--?" "Is easy for you to grant. I am tired of dependence, even on your goodness. Make me your wife, and let me share the wealth acquired by the guilt of whose secrets I know." CHAPTER XVIII. THE DUEL IN THE MOONLIGHT. The plantation of Silas Craig, at Iberville, was situated, as we have already said, upon the borders of a wood; a luxuriant forest, stretching for miles upon the banks of the Mississippi, varied every here and there by undulating dells and pools of water, lying hidden beneath the shadows of giant trees, whose branches had waved for centuries above a solitude, broken only by the fleet foot of the Indian. It was in this forest that the unhappy and martyred quadroon Francilia lay in her quiet grave--a grassy mound, marked only by the rude wooden cross erected at its head by the faithful mulatto, Toby. Here, at least, the lovely child of an accursed and trampled race was free. Here no master dared molest her tranquil slumber. Death sets the slave and the prisoner alike at liberty. The red sun sank in crimson splendor beneath the purple waters of the mighty river; upon every forest tree gleamed golden reflections of the dying light; upon the bosom of each quiet pool the last sunbeams faded and flickered in the shadowy twilight, while, calmly beautiful, the moon arose in her tranquil glory, bathing forest and river in a flood of silvery radiance. The last glimmer of crimson light was slowly fading as two men advanced through one of the pathways of the wood--a pathway so overarched by the rich spreading branches of the trees that it seemed one verdant arcade. Each of these men carried a carbine upon his shoulder, and a powder flask slung at his side. The first was William Bowen, the second, who closely followed his companion, was Augustus Horton. They emerged from the arcade into an open piece of turf, around which the trunks of the giant trees formed a species of a wall. "Where, in the name of all that's diabolical, are you leading me, Bill?" said Augustus, looking about him.