ong in my very weakness, for as I had but one solitary motive
to link me to life; that being removed, my oppressor felt aware my life
would then only serve as the price by which I was to purchase revenge.

"I was absent, when one of his miscreants administered some deleterious
beverage to the unsuspecting Anselma, the effects of which answered to
their utmost extent the wishes of the libertine. An irresistible
lethargy oppressed the senses and rendered powerless the limbs of the
helpless victim. In that state she was borne to the couch of her undoer,
and by a stratagem worthy of the monster by whom it was invented, Gomez
Arias triumphed over her passive unconscious form. Happy, happy if the
unnatural slumber in which Anselma was immersed, had subsided into the
sleep of death. But no, she awoke--she returned to life, only to curse
that life which was now covered with degradation. Alas! she had no one
to whom she could fly, and under whose fostering kindness she might hide
her shame; she had no refuge left--none but death, the last shelter of
virtuous woman betrayed. She spurned with indignant pride the glittering
offers of the miscreant who wrought her ruin. She recoiled with
abhorrence from his loathsome caresses; cursed in bitter agony his
unmanly deed, and brooded over her misfortune, until the loss of her
reason followed the profanation of her person."

Again the renegade stopt in his recital, as if unable to sustain the
painful recollection, and after a pause he continued:--

"Evening was falling as I returned from my distant mission. My heart
felt unusually heavy and desponding; as I was passing near a precipice
in these very mountains, my ear was struck with the hum of voices,
mingled with the discordant shrieks of birds of prey which issued from
the abyss below. Presently a flight of those ominous birds came
screaming on high, as if scared by some unwelcome intruders, and the hum
of voices was converted into a long, piercing, and promiscuous
lamentation. With as much activity as the perilous nature of that
precipice would permit, I hastened towards the spot, and soon perceived
the melancholy cause of the wailings that had arrested my course. Some
peasants were with difficulty dragging from that frightful abyss a
burthen, which, as well as I could distinguish from the distance,
appeared a human body. I approached nearer, and found that it was in
reality a human--a mangled corpse!--It was that of my Anselma!"

"