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 lantern which streamed on the ground, he saw that,
instead of the indignant crowd his apprehensions had imagined, only two
men were on the spot, one of them old and diminutive, and the other
encumbered with the exhumed body. In the glow of fanatic fury, he forgot
all personal fears, and while his dastard creatures held on their
terrified course, he sprang back alone to the burial-ground, and seizing
the old man with one hand, he stretched forth the other to grasp from the
Moriscoe's hold his still insensible burthen.

"Sacrilegious villains!" cried he, "give up your impious purpose, and
resign the body of the recreant lost one. Let it rot in its earthy prison,
till the last trumpet rouse it in resurged life to burn in eternal fire."

A deep and silent plunge of the Moriscoe's poignard struck the blaspheming
bigot in the throat; another blow pierced his heart, as he fell into the
imperfectly hollowed grave; and while he lay there, several strokes were
dealt on him by the feeble hands of the old man with one of the spades,
which he tremblingly seized. And then, in the instinct of terror at the
deed, he shovelled the loose earth over the bleeding carcass, while the