of the kind. Beatrice's judges, therefore, after a summary hearing,
decreed that she too should be buried alive--but at night. She heard her
sentence, in just sufficient exercise of reason to comprehend and shudder
at it. But her mind, wandering and unsettled, had not force enough to
dwell on the contemplation of what awaited her, and unconscious of her
approaching fate gave her the semblance of indifference.

But Beatrice, with all her pride, and almost unfeminine force of character,
was not proof against a fate so horrible. As the hour drew nigh when she
was to be led forth to execution, the blood in her throbbing veins seemed
suddenly frozen, like the hot streams of lava checked in its molten flow.
Her blanched cheeks and starting eyeballs told that her fever was quenched,
and her insensibility awakened to a full sense of her terror.

In darkness and silence the sad procession moved from the prison's most
private door, on the night fixed for the execution, the third after the
hapless girl's arrival in Brussels. The persons employed were few; no
sympathizing crowd attended to strain the victim's pride and courage, and
make her for very shame's sake brave the terrific scene. Lone and desolate,
she was led along by two brutal men, with taunt and execration; they,
dressed in the dark habits of their office: she, bare-footed, and clothed
in the yellow garment called a _san benito_, her beautiful jet locks cut
close, and her disfigured head and pallid face surmounted by the conical
cap in which the inquisition decked its victims for sacrifice. Four masked
men walked first in the procession, two carrying spades, and two bearing
the insignia of the Holy Office. Next followed the secretary, with a book
and materials for writing, ready to record the particulars of the
execution. Then came Beatrice, dragged onwards by her supporters, and
urged towards the closing scene by the odious voice of Dom Lupo, pouring a
strain of pious blasphemies into her reluctant ears. He stepped close in