rimly, "yes, I did accompany him to the stage
of his despair and my glory: yes, I was beside my victim, like the
vulture watching for the moment to lacerate his heart. But I went not to
whisper hope into his dying ear, or to bid him rely on the mercies of
Heaven; no, it was to speak the words of horror; to bid him despair, and
point the way to that hell whither soon I was to follow him. My soul was
drunk with joy; my heart was wild with happiness: gladly would I
purchase with a whole existence of misery and crime those few rapturous
moments when I could watch the dreadful workings of his mind, as the
last peal of my ominous voice rung in his ear, ere his soul took its
flight from this world."

"Peace, wretch!" exclaimed the queen. "Leave thy blasphemy; tremble for
the profanation of thy sacred calling; tremble for the punishment which
awaits thy crime."

"I tremble at nought," sternly replied the assassin. "No canting friar
am I; no preaching monk; but a man deeply wronged, and now amply
revenged. Look on me," he continued in a wild tone, throwing off his
disguise, "I am Bermudo, the renegade!"

Every one shrunk back with instinctive horror at the well known name;
but the consternation increased, when in the person of the apostate was
recognised the Moor who had played so principal a part in the
condemnation of Gomez Arias.

"Look on me," proceeded the renegade; "look on me, Gomez Arias; behold
the man by you condemned to misery and shame--I am Bermudo the outcast,
the maddened lover of the unfortunate Anselma. Call back, Don Lope, the
powers of thy fleeting soul, and fix its fading recollection on thy
crimes and my misfortunes: remember Anselma--remember her frightful
fate--your wrongs to me--the despair to which I was driven. But for
thee, proud man, I might have been a hero, and for thee I am a traitor
and a renegade. But, oh! now thou art laid low--no, not even princely
fortune and favour could save thee from the hand of a desperate man.
Die, then, die in despair: it is in the hour of rapturous happiness that
the blow is struck, and think with agony that it is struck by
Bermudo.--Anselma, thou art revenged!"

A wild and savage laugh closed this apostrophe, and the renegade stood
calmly gazing on his victim with an expression of ferocious joy: his
dark features seemed to brighten in the glare of infernal revenge, and
his strong frame shook with the rapture of the fiend that inspired him.

Meantime, Gomez Arias