y--twenty-three." She was going to say twenty-four, and
now says twenty-three? "Ha! why this hesitation?" asks Captain Ulric,
one of Carpezan's gayest officers.

The dark chief pulls a letter from his pocket. "I require from you,
madam," he says sternly to the Lady Abbess, "the body of the noble lady
Sybilla of Hoya. Her brother was my favourite captain, slain by my side,
in the Milanese. By his death, she becomes heiress of his lands. 'Tis
said a greedy uncle brought her hither; and fast immured the lady
against her will. The damsel shall herself pronounce her fate--to stay a
cloistered sister of Saint Mary's, or to return to home and liberty, as
Lady Sybil, Baroness of ------." Ha! The Abbess was greatly disturbed
by this question. She says, haughtily: "There is no Lady Sybil in this
house: of which every inmate is under your protection, and sworn to go
free. The Sister Agnes was a nun professed, and what was her land and
wealth revert to this Order."

"Give me straightway the body of the Lady Sybil of Hoya!" roars
Carpezan, in great wrath. "If not, I make a signal to my Reiters, and
give you and your convent up to war."

"Faith, if I lead the storm, and have my right, 'tis not my Lady Abbess
that I'll choose," says Captain Ulric, "but rather some plump, smiling,
red-lipped maid like--like----" Here, as he, the sly fellow, is looking
under the veils of the two attendant nuns, the stern Abbess cries,
"Silence, fellow, with thy ribald talk! The lady, warrior, whom you ask
of me is passed away from sin, temptation, vanity, and three days since
our Sister Agnes--died."

At this announcement Carpezan is immensely agitated. The Abbess calls
upon the chaplain to confirm her statement. Ghastly and pale, the old
man has to own that three days since the wretched Sister Agnes was
buried.

This is too much! In the pocket of his coat of mail Carpezan has a
letter from Sister Agnes herself, in which she announces that she is
going to be buried indeed, but in an oubliette of the convent, where
she may either be kept on water and bread, or die starved outright. He
seizes the unflinching Abbess by the arm, whilst Captain Ulric lays hold
of the chaplain by the throat. The Colonel blows a blast upon his horn:
in rush his furious Lanzknechts from without. Crash, bang! They knock
the convent walls about. And in the midst of flames, screams, and
slaughter, who is presently brought in by Carpezan himself, and fainting
on his shoulder,