her seat, and longed for the hour which
was to sever her from a Christian world. She thought not of herself,
nor of what she was to suffer; she thought but of Philip; of his being
safe from these merciless creatures--of the happiness of dying first,
and of meeting him again in bliss.

Worn with long confinement, with suspense and anxiety, fatigued and
suffering from her painful walk, and the exposure to the burning sun,
after so many months' incarceration in a dungeon, she no longer shone
radiant with beauty; but still there was something even more touching
in her care-worn, yet still perfect features. The object of universal
gaze, she had walked with her eyes cast down, and nearly closed; but
occasionally, when she did look up, the fire that flashed from them
spoke the proud soul within, and many feared and wondered, while more
pitied that one so young, and still so lovely, should be doomed to
such an awful fate. Amine had not taken her seat in the Cathedral more
than a few seconds, when, overpowered by her feelings and by fatigue,
she fell back in a swoon.

Did no one step forward to assist her? to raise her up, and offer her
restoratives? No--not one. Hundreds would have done so, but they dared
not: she was an outcast, excommunicated, abandoned, and lost; and
should any one, moved by compassion for a suffering fellow-creature,
have ventured to raise her up, he would have been looked upon with
suspicion, and most probably have been arraigned, and have had to
settle the affair of conscience with the Holy Inquisition.

After a short time two of the officers of the Inquisition went to
Amine and raised her again in her seat, and she recovered sufficiently
to enable her to retain her posture.

A sermon was then preached by a Dominican monk, in which he pourtrayed
the tender mercies, the paternal love of the Holy Office. He compared
the Inquisition to the ark of Noah, out of which all the animals
walked after the deluge; but with this difference, highly in favour of
the Holy Office, that the animals went forth from the ark no better
than they went in, whereas those who had gone into the Inquisition
with all the cruelty of disposition, and with the hearts of wolves,
came out as mild and patient as lambs.

The public accuser then mounted the pulpit, and read from it all the
crimes of those who had been condemned, and the punishments which they
were to undergo. Each prisoner, as the sentence was read, was brought
forwar