ell upon the officer, but he still found strength to run on.

"The general grants thee thy life if thou wilt marry me," he said to her
in a low voice.

The Spaniard cast a look of proud disdain on the officer.

"Strike, Juanito," she said, in a voice of profound meaning.

Her head rolled at Victor's feet. When the Marquise heard the sound, a
convulsive start escaped her; this was the only sign of her affliction.

"Ah, thou weepest, Mariquita!" said Juanito to his sister.

"Yes," answered the girl; "I was thinking of thee, my poor Juanito; thou
wilt be so unhappy without us."

At length the noble figure of the Marquis appeared. He looked at the blood
of his children; then he turned to the spectators, who stood mute and
motionless before him. He stretched out his hands to Juanito and said, in
a firm voice:

"Spaniards, I give my son a father's blessing. Now, Marquis, strike
without fear, as thou art without fault."

But when Juanito saw his mother approach, supported by the confessor, he
groaned aloud, "She fed me at her own breast." His cry seemed to tear a
shout of horror from the lips of the crowd. At this terrible sound the
noise of the banquet and the laughter and the merrymaking of the officers
died away.

The Marquise comprehended that Juanito's courage was exhausted. With one
leap she had thrown herself over the balustrade, and her head was dashed
to pieces against the rocks below. A shout of admiration burst forth.
Juanito fell to the ground in a swoon.

"Marchand has been telling me about this execution," said a half-drunken
officer. "I'll warrant, gentlemen, it wasn't by our orders that----"

"Have you forgotten, Messieurs," cried General Gautier, "that during the
next month there will be five hundred French families in tears--that we
are in Spain? Do you wish to leave your bones here?"

After this speech there was not a man, not even a sub-lieutenant, who
dared to empty his glass.

In spite of the respect with which he is surrounded--in spite of the title
of El Verdugo (the executioner), bestowed upon him as a title of nobility
by the King of Spain--the Marquis de Leganes is a prey to melancholy. He
lives in solitude, and is rarely seen.

Overwhelmed with the load of his glorious crime, he seems only to await
the birth of a second son, impatient to seek again the company of those
Shades who are about his path continually.

The World's Richest Legacy.

Immured in an Asylum, a True So