But Beatrice, with all her pride, and almost unfeminine force of character, was not proof against a fate so horrible.  As the hour drew nigh when she was to be led forth to execution, the blood in her throbbing veins seemed suddenly frozen, like the hot streams of lava checked in its molten flow.  Her blanched cheeks and starting eyeballs told that her fever was quenched, and her insensibility awakened to a full sense of her terror.

In darkness and silence the sad procession moved from the prison’s most private door, on the night fixed for the execution, the third after the hapless girl’s arrival in Brussels.  The persons employed were few; no sympathizing crowd attended to strain the victim’s pride and courage, and make her for very shame’s sake brave the terrific scene.  Lone and desolate, she was led along by two brutal men, with taunt and execration; they, dressed in the dark habits of their office:  she, bare-footed, and clothed in the yellow garment called a san benito, her beautiful jet locks cut close, and her disfigured head and pallid face surmounted by the conical cap in which the inquisition decked its victims for sacrifice.  Four masked men walked first in the procession, two carrying spades, and two bearing the insignia of the Holy Office.  Next followed the secretary, with a book and materials for writing, ready to record the particulars of the execution.  Then came Beatrice, dragged onwards by her supporters, and urged towards the closing scene by the odious voice of Dom Lupo, pouring a strain of pious blasphemies into her reluctant ears.  He stepped close in her tract, and leant his head forward, determined that she should not have a moment’s respite till the damp earth closed those ears for ever.  A dozen armed men brought up the march; and no suspicion of the inquisitor’s proceeding aroused the citizens, in the narrow and unlit streets through which it moved.

In less than half an hour, Beatrice’s bruised and lacerated feet, felt a sudden relief that spread up refreshingly through her whole frame, on pressing a grass plot, moistened by the night dew.  At the same moment, a gleam from a lantern opened by one of the men close to her, showed that she stood on the brink of a newly-dug grave.  She started back at the appalling sight—­and was upheld from falling by her attendants, on whose faces she saw a malignant grin; while the tones of Dom Lupo’s voice seemed to hiss in her ears, like the serpent triumph of a fiend.

“Erring daughter of the only true and most merciful church,” gloomed he, “unrepented sinner, on the verge of death—­ere the grave close over thy living agony—­ere the arm of Almighty wrath shove thee into the pit of hell, and eternal flames enfold thee—­listen to the last offer of the mother thou hast outraged, of the faith thou hast defiled.  Recant thy errors—­renounce thy false Gods—­confess thy crimes—­and return into the blessed bosom of the church!”

Beatrice, rousing the whole force of her latent energy, pushed the inquisitor from her, with a look of scorn, burst from her keepers’ arms, and sprang into the open grave.