“He was my foe,” muttered the prisoner, almost unconscious of the import of his words, or how far they would confirm the suspicions against him.  “He robbed me of happiness—­he destined me to misery.  I hated him; but I did not murder him.  I swore to take his life or lose my own; but not thus—­not thus.  Great God! to see him lying there, and feel it might have been my hand.  Men, men! would ye quench hatred, behold its object stricken before you by a dastard blow like this, and ye will feel its enormity and horror.  I did not slay him; I would give my life to the murderer’s dagger to call him back, and ask his forgiveness for the thoughts of blood I entertained against him; but I touched him not—­my sword is stainless.”

“Thou liest, false traitor!” exclaimed Don Felix, fiercely, and he held up the hilt and about four inches of a sword, the remainder of which was still in the body.  “Behold the evidence to thy black lie!  My liege, this fragment was found beside the body deluged in gore.  We know the hilt too well to doubt, one moment, the name of its possessor; there is not another like it throughout Spain.  It snapt in the blow, as if more honorable than its master, it could not survive so foul a stain.  What arm should wield it save his own?”

A universal murmur of execration, acknowledged this convincing evidence; doubly confirmed, as it seemed to be by the fearful start and muttered exclamation, on the part of the prisoner the moment it was produced.  The nobles thronged round the King, some entreating him to sentence the midnight assassin to instant execution; others, to retain him in severest imprisonment till the proofs of his guilt could be legally examined, and the whole European World hear of the crime, and its chastisement; lest they should say that as a foreigner, justice was refused to him.  To this opinion the King leaned.

“Ye counsel well and wisely, my lords,” he said.  “It shall not be said, because the murdered was our subject, and the murderer an alien, that he was condemned without examination of proofs against him, or being heard in his own defence.  Seven suns hence we will ourselves examine every evidence for or against him, which, your penetration, my lords, can collect.  Till then, Don Felix, the prisoner is your charge, to be produced when summoned; and now away with the midnight assassin—­he has polluted our presence too long.  Away with the base ingrate, who has thus requited our trust and love; we would look on him no more.”

With, a rapid movement the unfortunate young man broke from the guard, which, at Don Felix’s sign, closed round and sought to drag him from the hall, and flung himself impetuously at Ferdinand’s feet.

“I am no murderer!” he exclaimed, in a tone of such passionate agony, that to any less prejudiced than those around, it must at least have raised doubt as to his guilt.  “I am not the base ingrate you would deem me.  Condemn me to death an thou wilt, I kneel not to sue for life; for, dishonored and suspected, I would not accept it were it offered.  Let them bring forward what they will, I am innocent.  Here, before ye all, in presence of the murdered victim, by all held sacred in Heaven or on Earth, I swear I slew him not!  If I am guilty I call upon the dead himself to rise, and blast me with his gaze!”