ards,
but they remained silent. "Oh, God!" he continued, "in the field, or on the
wave, or on the block, which has reeked so often with the bravest and
noblest blood, I could have died smiling; but this--" His emotion seemed
increasing, but with a violent effort he suppressed every outward sign of
it; for the visible satisfaction which gleamed on the dark faces around
him, at the state of weakness to which they had reduced the proud heart of
their foe, was more galling to his soul than the shameful death to which he
was devoted.

By the time he reached the place of execution his face had assumed its
calm and scornful air, and he sprang upon the scaffold with apparently
unconcerned alacrity. At the same moment a dreadful shriek issued from that
part of the surrounding booths in which the family of Chandos sat; and in
another instant a female, deadly pale, and with her hair and dress
disordered, had darted on to the scaffold, and clasped the prisoner in her
arms.

"Walter!" she cried, "Walter! can it be thou? oh! they dare not take thy
life; thou bravest, best of men! Avaunt, ye bloodthirsty brood! ye cannot
tear me from him. Not till my arms grow cold in death I'll clasp him thus,
and defy the world to sever us!"

"Oh! Isabel!" he said, "it is too much; my soul can bear no more. I hoped
thy eyes had been spared this sight--but the cold tyrants have decreed it
thus. On! leave me, leave me!--it is in vain--unmannered ruffians, spare
her!" While he spoke, the soldiers forcibly tore her from him, and were
dragging her through the crowd.--"My father! save him! he saved thy
child!--Walter! supplicate him--he is kind." She turned her eyes to the
scaffold as she uttered these words, and beheld the form of Spenser
writhing in the air, and convulsed with the last mortal agony. A fearful
shriek burst from her heart, and she sank senseless in the arms of those
who bore her.

Isabel survived this event more than a twelvemonth; but her reason had
fled and her health was so shattered that final recovery was hopeless.
She took scarcely any food, refused all intercourse with her former
friends, and even with her father, and would sit silent and motionless
for days together. One thing only soothed her mind, or afforded her any
gratification; and this, as she was an experienced navigator of the
river, her friends indulged her in--to sail from the city of Hereford to
that spot on which she used to meet her lover. This she did constantly