by his side severed at
the wrist; his throat was cut, and his temples bruised with some blunt
instrument. The murder had been traced to his servant, and was to be
expiated in kind this very morning.

Italian executions were not cruel in general. But this murder was
thought to call for exact and bloody retribution.

The criminal was brought to the house of the murdered man and fastened
for half an hour to its wall. After this foretaste of legal vengeance
his left hand was struck off, like his victim's. A new-killed fowl was
cut open and fastened round the bleeding stump; with what view I really
don't know; but by the look of it, some mare's nest of the poor dear
doctors; and the murderer, thus mutilated and bandaged, was hurried to
the scaffold; and there a young friar was most earnest and affectionate
in praying with him, and for him, and holding the crucifix close to his
eyes.

Presently the executioner pulled the friar roughly on one side, and in
a moment felled the culprit with a heavy mallet, and falling on him, cut
his throat from ear to ear.

There was a cry of horror from the crowd.

The young friar swooned away.

A gigantic monk strode forward, and carried him off like a child.

Brother Clement went back to the convent sadly discouraged. He confessed
to the prior, with tears of regret.

"Courage, son Clement," said the prior. "A Dominican is not made in
a day. Thou shalt have another trial. And I forbid thee to go to it
fasting." Clement bowed his head in token of obedience. He had not long
to wait. A robber was brought to the scaffold; a monster of villainy
and cruelty, who had killed men in pure wantonness, after robbing them.
Clement passed his last night in prison with him, accompanied him to
the scaffold, and then prayed with him and for him so earnestly that the
hardened ruffian shed tears and embraced him Clement embraced him
too, though his flesh quivered with repugnance; and held the crucifix
earnestly before his eyes. The man was garotted, and Clement lost sight
of the crowd, and prayed loud and earnestly while that dark spirit was
passing from earth. He was no sooner dead than the hangman raised his
hatchet and quartered the body on the spot. And, oh, mysterious heart
of man! the people who had seen the living body robbed of life with
indifference, almost with satisfaction, uttered a piteous cry at each
stroke of the axe upon his corpse that could feel nought. Clement too
shuddered then, bu