er. Antonio sank into a deep study, and Crescentia sat by
the window on a low stool.

"Can I sleep anywhere?" the weary youth at length askt.

"There is another room above," said Crescentia sobbing; and he now
first observed that she had been crying bitterly all the time. She
trimmed the lamp, to make it burn brighter, and walkt silently before
him. He followed her up a narrow staircase, and after they were above
in the low dark loft, the damsel set the light on a little table and
was on the point of retiring. But when already at the door she turned
back again, stared at the young man as with a look of death, stood
tottering before him, and then fell sobbing aloud and with violent
unintelligible lamentations as in a convulsion down at his feet.

"What is the matter with thee, my sweet girl?" he exclaimed, and tried
to lift her up: "hush thee; tell me thy sorrow."

"No, let me lie here!" cried the weeper. "O that I might die here at
your feet, might die this very instant. No, it is too horrible. And
that I can do nothing, can hinder nothing, that I must behold the
crime in silence and helplessly! But you must hear it."

"Compose thyself then," said Antonio comforting her, "that thou mayst
recover thy voice and thy words."

"I look," she continued passionately and interrupted by her tears, "so
like your lost love, and it is I who am to lead you by the hand into
the house of murder. My mother may easily foretell that a near
misfortune is hanging over you: she well knows the gang that assemble
here nightly. No one has ever yet escaped alive from this hell. Every
moment is bringing him nearer and nearer, the fierce Ildefonso, or the
detestable Andrea, with their followers and comrades. Alas! and I can
only be the herald of your death, can offer you no help, no safety."

Antonio was horrour-struck. Pale and trembling he graspt after his
sword, tried his dagger, and summoned courage and resolution again.
Much as he had but now wisht for death, it was yet too frightful to be
thus forced to end his life in a robber's den.

"And thou," he began, "thou with this face, with this form, canst
bring thyself to be a companion, a helpmate to the accursed?"

"I cannot run away," she sighed despondingly: "how joyfully would I
fly from this house! Alas! and this night, tomorrow, I am to be taken
from hence, and dragged over the sea; I am to be made the wife of
Andrea or Ildefonso. Is it not better to die now?"

"Come," cried Ant