"Ah! That is true," she answered; "not only is my person captive, but you will also like to enchain my thoughts." This sentence was uttered with such an accent of concentrated anger and bitterness, that the old man started, and a livid pallor suddenly covered his face. "It is well, Señor," the girl continued, "for the future I will be on my guard." "I believed, I repeat," he replied with an accent of concentrated scorn, "that I should render you happy by bringing to you Colonel Melendez; but since I am mistaken, you shall not see him, Señorita." "What!" she exclaimed, bounding up like a lioness; "What did you say, Señor? What name did you pronounce?" "That of Colonel Melendez." "Have you summoned him?" "Yes." "Is he here?" "He is awaiting your permission to enter." The maiden gazed at him for a moment with an indescribable expression of amazement. "Why, you must love me!" she at length burst forth. "She asks that question!" the old man murmured sadly. "Will you see the Colonel?" "One moment, oh, one moment; I want to know you, to understand you, and learn what I ought to think of you." "Alas, I repeat to you, señorita, that I love you, love you to adoration; oh! Do not feel alarmed; that love has nothing of an insulting nature: what I love in you is an extraordinary, supernatural likeness to a woman who died, alas! On the same day that when my daughter was torn from me by the Indians. The daughter I lost, whom I shall never see again, would be your age, señorita: such is the secret of my love for you, of my repeated attempts to seize your person. Oh, let me love you, and deceive myself; in looking at you I fancy I see my poor dear child, and that error renders me so happy. Oh señorita! If you only knew what I have suffered, what I still suffer, from this miserable wound which burns my heart--oh! You would have pity on me." While the old man spoke with an impassioned accent, his face was almost transfigured; it had assumed such an expression of tenderness and sorrow, that the maiden felt affected, and by an involuntary impulse offered him her hand. "Poor father!" she said to him in a gentle and pitiful voice. "Thanks for that word," he replied in a voice choking with emotion, while his face was inundated with tears; "thanks, señorita, I feel less unhappy now." Then, after a moment's silence, he wiped away his tears. "Do you wish him to come in?" he asked softly. She smiled: the old man rushed to the door and threw it wide open. The Colonel entered and ran up to the maiden. White Scalper went out and closed the door after him. "At last," the Colonel exclaimed joyously, "I have found you again, dear Carmela!" "Alas!" she said. "Yes," he exclaimed with animation, "I understand you, but now you have nothing more to fear; I will free you from the odious yoke that oppresses you, and tear you from your ravisher." The maiden softly laid her hand on his arm, and shook her head with an admirable expression of melancholy.