utmost power was capable--a
scream more dreadful, more agonizing, more piercing than any of its
predecessors, rent this time the very walls of the torture-chamber: and
with this last outburst of mortal agony, the spirit of the guilty Giulia
fled forever! Yet was not the vengeance of the Count of Arestino
satisfied; and the grand inquisitor was prepared to gratify the hellish
sentiment to the fullest extent. The still warm and palpitating corpse
of the countess was hastily removed from the rack: and the familiars
stripped--nay, tore off the clothing of Manuel d'Orsini. The countenance
of the young nobleman was now terribly somber, as if the darkest
thoughts were occupying his inmost soul, and his eyes were bent fixedly
on the dreadful engine, to the tortures of which it appeared to be his
turn to submit.

The familiars, in order to divest him of his garments, and also to
stretch him in such a way on the rack that his arms might be fastened
over his head to the upper end of that instrument, had removed the
chains and cords which had hitherto bound him. And now the fatal moment
seemed to be at hand, and the familiars already grasped him rudely to
hurl him on the rack, when, as if suddenly inspired by a superhuman
strength, the young nobleman dashed the men from him; then, with
lightning speed, he seized a massive iron bar that was used to move the
windlass of the rack, and in another instant, before a saving arm could
intervene, the deadly instrument struck down the Count of Arestino at
the feet of the grand inquisitor, who started back with a cry of horror!
The next moment the marquis was again powerless and secure in the grasp
of the familiars--but he had accomplished his purpose, he had avenged
his mistress and himself--and the old Lord of Arestino lay, with
shattered skull, a corpse upon the cold pavement of the torture-chamber!

"Back--back with the murderer to his dungeon!" exclaimed the grand
inquisitor, in a tone of fearful excitement and rage. "We must not
afford him a chance of dying upon that engine of torture. No--no: the
lingering flames of the _auto-da-fe_ are reserved for the Marquis
d'Orsini!"

And in pursuance of the sentence thus pronounced, Manuel was hurried
away to his dark and solitary cell, there to remain a prey to all the
dreadful thoughts which the occurrences of that fatal evening were so
well calculated to marshal in horrible array to his imagination.

CHAPTER LXI.

While those aw