eep and fearful on
the murderer, with bitter lamentations on the victim. A sudden
and respectful hush acknowledged the presence of the Sovereign;
Ferdinand's brows were darkly knit, his lip compressed, his eyes
flashing sternly over the dense crowd; but he asked no question, nor
relaxed his hasty stride till he stood beside the litter on which,
covered with a mantle, the murdered One was lying. For a single minute
he evidently paused, and his countenance, usually so controlled as
never to betray emotion, visibly worked with some strong feeling,
which seemed to prevent the confirmation of his fears, by the trifling
movement of lifting up the mantle. But at length, and with a hurried
movement, it was cast aside; and there lay that noble form, cold,
rigid in death! The King pushed the long, jetty hair, now clotted with
gore, from the cheek on which it had fallen; and he recognized, too
well, the high, thoughtful brow, now white, cold as marble; the large,
dark eye, whose fixed and glassy stare had so horribly replaced the
bright intelligence, the sparkling lustre so lately there. The
clayey, sluggish white of death was already on his cheek; his lip,
convulsively compressed, and the left hand tightly clenched, as if the
soul had not been thus violently reft from the body, without a strong:
pang of mortal agony. His right hand had stiffened round the hilt
of his unsheathed sword, for the murderous blow had been dealt from
behind, and with such fatal aim, that death must have been almost
instantaneous, and the tight grasp of his sword the mere instinctive
movement of expiring nature. Awe-struck, chilled to the heart, did the
noble friends of the departed gather round him. On the first removal
of the mantle, an irresistible yell of curses on the murderer burst
forth from the soldiery, wrought into fury at thus beholding their
almost idolized commander; but the stern woe on the Sovereign's face
hushed them into silence; and the groan of grief and horror which
escaped involuntarily from Ferdinand's lips, was heard throughout the
hall.

"The murderer?" at length demanded many of the nobles at the same
moment. "Who has dared do this awful deed? Don Alonzo, is there no
clue to his person--no trace of his path?"

"There is trace and clue enough," was the brief and stern reply. "The
murderer is secured!"

"Ha!" exclaimed the King, roused at once; "secured, sayest thou? In
our bitter grief we had well-nigh forgotten justice. Bring