Hitherto the features of Clara had expressed nothing more than a kind of vague fear; but at the moment when the canoe rounded the last turn in the river, a sudden terror became depicted upon them. The hunter thus warned quickly faced round. An immense plain came before his eye, that seemed to stretch to the verge of the horizon. Through this ran the river, its waters almost on a level with the banks--which were covered with a grassy sward, and without a single tree. At some distance from the curve the stream almost doubled back on itself--forming a verdant delta, around the apex of which ran the road that led to the hacienda Las Palmas. The rays of the setting sun were flooding the plain with a transparent golden haze, which hung over the empurpled bosom of the water on which the canoe was floating. Just above, in the middle of the current, and scarce two shots distant from where the two men were, a sight appeared to the ravished eyes of the tiger-hunter that caused him at once to change his position in the boat. "_Mira_!" exclaimed he in a half-whisper. "Look, Clara! Did you ever behold a more beautiful sight?" With his claws stuck into the floating carcass of a colt upon which he was feeding, an enormous jaguar was suffering himself to float gently down the stream. It was the male one, the same from which the last howlings had proceeded. With his head outstretched and curving over his fore paws, his hind legs drawn up under his belly, his back highly arched, and his flanks quivering with a supple undulation that betokened activity and power, was seen the royal beast of the American jungle. The dying rays of the sun falling upon his glossy skin displayed his splendid coat of bright yellow ocellated with spots of deepest black. It was one of those beautiful savage spectacles often exhibited to the eyes of the Indian hunter--a magnificent episode in that eternal poem which the wilderness is constantly repeating. Scarce taking time to gaze upon it, Costal passed the paddle to his companion; and, gun in hand, crouched down in the bottom of the canoe. Clara accepted the oar, and half mechanically commenced rowing. He had made no reply to the enthusiastic interrogatory of the hunter. Fear held him speechless. At that moment a growl, resembling the deepest tones of an ophicleide, resounded from the throat of the jaguar, rolling over the surface of the water to the ears of the men seated in the canoe. He had seen his enemies, and this was his signal of defiance. The Indian replied by a cry somewhat similar, as the bloodhound utters his wild bay on seeing his victim before him. "It's the male!" said Costal, apparently pleased that it was so. "Fire, then!" cried Clara, at last finding his tongue.