nner chain, of which the end was secured to the stone above mentioned,
round the neck of the victim, who stood shaking and trembling, and
allowing himself to be thus dealt with as unresistingly as a lamb. The
poor fellow had left off sobbing, and was now repeating Ave Marias in a
low hurried voice, with all the agonized eagerness of one who in his last
moments would fain make up for former omissions.

"Would you, Senoria, wish to have the sentence read?" enquired the alcalde
of the man in the blue cloak, who stood observing the proceedings in deep
silence, and now made no answer to the question.

"Would Don Ruy Gomez be pleased to hear the sentence read?" repeated the
alcalde in a hoarse whisper.

Still no reply.

The alguazil made a sign to the executioner. The latter pressed the
prisoner down upon the stone--the snap of a spring was heard--the stone
fell out of the wall.

"Jesus Maria! Todos Santos!" shrieked Cosmo. "Madre mi"----

The last syllable was not uttered; in its place there was the noise of
crushed and breaking bones; and then the tongue protruded from the mouth,
and the eyes from their sockets, the face became of a deep purple colour,
and the victim hung a corpse in his manacles.

"_El ultimo suspiro!_" said the executioner, in an unusually solemn tone.

The viceroy's secretary shuddered, and gazed fixedly and in silence upon
the corpse.

"The finest youth in Mexico!" he murmured. And then, as if devils had been
goading him, he hurried to the door.

"Show his Senoria a light," cried the alguazil gravely; "and may his dying
hour be as easy as that of this unfortunate. By my soul," continued he to
the alcalde, "these great men are delicate. They take us for tongs, made
to pull their chestnuts out of the fire."

The alcalde nodded.

"Do not forget the prisoner," said he. And with an abrupt "_Adios_," he
left the vault.

"Come, and that quickly," cried the alguazil anxiously; "in a quarter of
an hour it might be too late. An alcalde and an alguazil cannot be always
blind."

His summons, which had been uttered in a loud tone, was replied to by the
appearance of the original occupant of the No. 3 cell, who now re-entered
the vault, supported by the two strangers with whom he had quitted it a
short time previously.

"Where am I?" he exclaimed.

"In a place which few ever leave alive, Don Manuel," was the answer; "but
he that has the Pope for his cousin, as the proverb says, need not fear
hell