he sneering features of the
hated Don Luis Garcia. She seemed to cling yet closer to Stanley,
and knelt with, him to receive the blow; when, at that moment, the
scaffold shook violently, as by the shock of an earthquake, a dark
chashm yawned beneath their feet, in the centre of which stood the
spectral figure of her husband, his countenance ghastly and stern, and
his arm upraised as beckoning her to join him. And then he spoke; but
his voice sounded unlike his own:--

"Marie Henriquez Morales! awake, arise, and follow!"

And with such extraordinary clearness did the words fall, that she
started up in terror, believing they must have been spoken by her
side--and they were! they might have mingled with, perhaps even
created her dream. She still lay on her couch; but it seemed to have
sunk down through the very floor of the apartment[A] she had occupied,
and at its foot stood a figure, who, with upraised arm held before her
a wooden cross. His cowl was closely drawn, and a black robe, of the
coarsest serge, was secured round his waist by a hempen cord. Whether
he had indeed spoken the words she had heard in her dream Marie could
not tell, for they were not repeated. She saw him approach her, and
she felt his strong grasp lift her from the couch, which sprung up, by
the touch of some secret spring, to the place whence it had descended;
and she heard no more.

[Footnote A: I may be accused in this scene, of too closely imitating
a somewhat similar occurrence in Anne of Geirstein. Such seeming
plagiarism was scarcely possible to be avoided, when the superstitious
proceedings of the _vehmic_ tribunal of Germany and the _secret_
Inquisition of Spain are represented by history as so very similar.]

CHAPTER XXIV.

"Isabel.--Ha! little honor to be much believed,
And most pernicious purpose--seeming, seeming.
I will proclaim thee, Angelo! look for't;
Sign me a present pardon--
Or, with an outstretch'd throat, I'll tell the world
Aloud what man thou art.

"Angelo.--Who will believe thee?
My unsoil'd name, th' austereness of my life,
My vouch against you, and my place i' the State,
Will so your accusation overweigh
That you will stifle in your own report
The smile of Calumny."

SHAKSPEARE.

When Marie recovered consciousness, she found herself in a scene so
strange, so terrific, that it appeared as if she must have been borne
many miles from Segovia, so utterly impossible did it seem, t