at vile as she
was, it would have moved any human being save Nisida. "Do not kill
me--and I will end my miserable days in a convent! Give me time to
repent of all my sins--for they are numerous and great! Oh! spare me,
dear lady--have mercy upon me--have mercy upon me!"

"What mercy had you on them whose mangled remains are buried in the
ground beneath your feet?" demanded Nisida, in a voice almost suffocated
with rage. "Prepare for death--your last moment is at hand!" and a
bright dagger flashed in the lamp-light.

"Mercy--mercy!" exclaimed Margaretha, springing forward, and grasping
Nisida's knees.

"I know not what mercy is!" cried the terrible Italian woman, raising
the long, bright, glittering dagger over her head.

"Holy God! protect me! Lady--dear lady, have pity upon me!" shrieked the
agonized wretch, her countenance hideously distorted, and appallingly
ghastly, as it was raised in such bitterly earnest appeal toward that of
the avengeress. "Again I say mercy--mercy!"

"Die, fiend!" exclaimed Nisida; and the dagger, descending with
lightning speed, sunk deep into the bosom of the prostrate victim. A
dreadful cry burst from the lips of the wretched woman; and she fell
back--a corpse!

"Oh! my dear--my well-beloved and never-to-be-forgotten mother!" said
Nisida, falling upon her knees by the side of the body, and gazing
intently upward--as if her eyes could pierce the entire building
overhead, and catch a glimpse of the spirit of the parent whom she thus
apostrophized--"pardon me--pardon me for this deed! Thou didst enjoin me
to abstain from vengeance--but when I thought of all thy wrongs, the
contemplation drove me mad--and an irresistible power--a force which I
could not resist--has hurried me on to achieve the punishment of this
wretch who was so malignant an enemy of thine; dearest mother, pardon
me--look not down angrily on thy daughter!"

Then Nisida gave way to all the softer emotion which attended the
reaction that her mind was now rapidly undergoing, after being so highly
strung, as for the last few hours it was--and her tears fell in
torrents. For some minutes she remained in her kneeling position, and
weeping, till she grew afraid--yes, afraid of being in that lonely
place, with the corpse stretched on the ground--a place, too, which for
other reasons awoke such terrible recollections in her mind.

Starting to her feet--and neither waiting to extinguish the lamp, which
she herself had lighted