heavy on her
head!" exclaimed the furious priest, stamping his foot with rage, and
motioning to the familiars, who instantly commenced to shovel the earth
into the grave. Not a sound was heard but the soft rustling of the leaves
overhead, for this scene took place in the open ground above the Sablon,
formerly mentioned as the scene of some earlier executions; and Beatrice's
grave was dug at the very foot of the tree, where the Jews, in 1370, had
expiated their imputed sacrilege.

Not a murmur, not a movement betrayed an instant's shrinking from her fate,
as the cold heap of clay covered Beatrice to the very neck. Her face was
still above ground, and the infuriated bigot, whose word was to save her
or stifle her voice for ever, once more approached. He knelt beside her
thrust his crucifix close to her still straining eyes, and in accents that
faltered from rage, he cried out--

"Dost thou still dare refuse? Death is on thy lips--hell gapes for
thee!--Wretched woman, say but one word--kiss the blessed relic, and thou
art saved."

"There is but one God, and Mahomet is his prophet!" said Beatrice, in
hollow and broken accents.

"It is done! Cover her quick! Let her perish in eternal fire!" cried the
inquisitor.

The executioners heaped the earth still higher--the head was covered
in--and only then a smothered scream burst upwards, while the struggles of
natural agony shook the mound to and fro.--Still the legal and consecrated
murderers went on, with trembling hands and quaking hearts; but as they
hastily closed their work, a deep and heavy groan came upon the air from a
not distant part of the waste ground; and the group looking round in
guilty terror, saw a man close wrapped in a cloak, but struggling with
another, of aged and decrepit stature, as if he would break from his hold,
and rush upon their unholy labours. A weapon gleamed in his hand; and the
whole group of guilt, inquisitor, familiars and guards, struck with panic,
and imagining rescue and revenge from a hundred indignant arms, hastily
fled from the scene with loud cries for help.

In a moment the grave was torn open, and Beatrice, still panting in the
struggle between life and death, snatched from its re-opened jaws, and
about to be borne off in the close-locked arms of her brother, when the
insatiate inquisitor, his ardent vengeance overcoming his fears, turned
from his flight to give one assuring glance upon his victim's grave. By
the light of the la