breast with his clenched hand; and, shrieking, rather than exclaiming,
"God of my fathers! have I come too late?" buried his spurs to the rowels
in the sides of his panting steed. Along the sward, through the fragrant
shrubs, athwart the pebbly and shallow torrent, up the ascent to the
convent, sped the Israelite. Muza, wondering and half reluctant,
followed at a little distance. Clearer and nearer came the voices of the
choir; broader and redder glowed the tapers from the Gothic casements:
the porch of the convent chapel was reached; the Hebrew sprang from his
horse. A small group of the peasants dependent on the convent loitered
reverently round the threshold; pushing through them, as one frantic,
Almamen entered the chapel and disappeared.

A minute elapsed. Muza was at the door; but the Moor paused
irresolutely, ere he dismounted. "What is the ceremony?" he asked of the
peasants.

"A nun is about to take the vows," answered one of them.

A cry of alarm, of indignation, of terror, was heard within. Muza no
longer delayed: he gave his steed to the bystanders, pushed aside the
heavy curtain that screened the threshold and was within the chapel.

By the altar gathered a confused and disordered group--the sisterhood,
with their abbess. Round the consecrated rail flocked the spectators,
breathless and amazed. Conspicuous above the rest, on the elevation of
the holy place, stood Almamen with his drawn dagger in his right hand,
his left arm clasped around the form of a novice, whose dress, not yet
replaced by the serge, bespoke her the sister fated to the veil; and, on
the opposite side of that sister, one hand on her shoulder, the other
rearing on high the sacred crucifix, stood a stern, commanding form, in