With closed eyes and a calm countenance, his heart was yet filled with agony, as he remembered his desolated home and his defenceless little ones. Suddenly, a light footstep was heard in the wood adjoining. The sentinel sprang to his feet, and demanded, “Who goes there?” A boy, over whose youthful brow scarce twelve summers could have passed, answered the summons. “I would speak with your chief,” he said. The ruthless man raised his head as the boy spoke this; and, not waiting for an answer, he sprang forward and stood before him. “What is your errand here, boy?” asked the brigand. “I come a suppliant for my father’s life,” he said, pointing to the prisoner on the grass. “He dies with the morrow’s sun,” was the unmoved reply. “Nay, chieftain, spare him, for my mother’s sake, and for her children. Let _him_ live, and, if you must have blood, I will die for him;” and the noble boy threw himself at the feet of the chief, and looked up imploringly in his face. “He is so good!--You smile: you will save his life!” “You speak lightly of life,” said the stern man, “and you know little of death. Are you willing to lose one of your ears, for your father’s sake?” “I am,” said the boy, and he removed his cap, and fixed his eyes on his father’s face. Not a single tear fell, as the severed member, struck off by the chief’s hand, lay at his feet. “You bear it bravely, boy; are you willing to lose the other?” “If it will save my father’s life,” was the unfaltering response. A moment more, and the second one lay beside its fellow, while yet not a groan, or word expressive of suffering, passed the lips of the noble child. “Will you now release my father?” he asked, as he turned to the prostrate man, whose tears, which his own pain had no power to bring forth, fell thick and fast, as he witnessed the bravery of his unoffending son. For a moment it seemed that a feeling of compassion had penetrated the flinty soul of the man of blood. But, if the spark had fallen, it glimmered but a moment on the cold iron of that heart, and then went out forever. “Before I release him, tell me who taught you thus to endure suffering.” “My father,” answered the boy. “Then that father must die; for Spain is not safe while he lives to rear such children.” And before the morning dawned father and son slept their last sleep.