s
Attendants to cut their way through the multitude: Oppressed by
numbers, it was impossible for them to draw their swords. He
threatened the Mob with the vengeance of the Inquisition: But in this
moment of popular phrenzy even this dreadful name had lost its effect.
Though regret for his Sister made him look upon the Prioress with
abhorrence, Lorenzo could not help pitying a Woman in a situation so
terrible: But in spite of all his exertions, and those of the Duke, of
Don Ramirez, and the Archers, the People continued to press onwards.
They forced a passage through the Guards who protected their destined
Victim, dragged her from her shelter, and proceeded to take upon her a
most summary and cruel vengeance. Wild with terror, and scarcely
knowing what She said, the wretched Woman shrieked for a moment's
mercy: She protested that She was innocent of the death of Agnes, and
could clear herself from the suspicion beyond the power of doubt. The
Rioters heeded nothing but the gratification of their barbarous
vengeance. They refused to listen to her: They showed her every sort
of insult, loaded her with mud and filth, and called her by the most
opprobrious appellations. They tore her one from another, and each new
Tormentor was more savage than the former. They stifled with howls and
execrations her shrill cries for mercy; and dragged her through the
Streets, spurning her, trampling her, and treating her with every
species of cruelty which hate or vindictive fury could invent. At
length a Flint, aimed by some well-directing hand, struck her full upon
the temple. She sank upon the ground bathed in blood, and in a few
minutes terminated her miserable existence. Yet though She no longer
felt their insults, the Rioters still exercised their impotent rage
upon her lifeless body. They beat it, trod upon it, and ill-used it,
till it became no more than a mass of flesh, unsightly, shapeless, and
disgusting.

Unable to prevent this shocking event, Lorenzo and his Friends had
beheld it with the utmost horror: But they were rouzed from their
compelled inactivity, on hearing that the Mob was attacking the Convent
of St. Clare. The incensed Populace, confounding the innocent with the
guilty, had resolved to sacrifice all the Nuns of that order to their
rage, and not to leave one stone of the building upon another. Alarmed
at this intelligence, they hastened to the Convent, resolved to defend
it if possible, or at least to