suffer; and that those who were behind, and upon whom his back was turned, were cast away, to perish for ever in this world, and the next.  Behind the Crucifix followed the seven condemned; and, as the greatest criminal, Amine walked the last.  But the procession did not close here.  Behind Amine were five effigies, raised high on poles, clothed in the same dresses, painted with flames and demons.  Behind each effigy was borne a coffin, containing a skeleton; the effigies were of those who had died in their dungeon, or expired under the torture, and who had been tried and condemned after their death, and sentenced to be burnt.  These skeletons had been dug up, and were to suffer the same sentence as, had they still been living beings, they would have undergone.  The effigies were to be tied to the stakes, and the bones were to be consumed.  Then followed the members of the Inquisition; the familiars, monks, priests, and hundreds of penitents, in black dresses, which concealed their faces, all with the lighted tapers in their hands.

It was two hours before the procession, which had paraded through almost every important street in Goa, arrived at the Cathedral in which the further ceremonies were to be gone through.  The barefooted culprits could now scarcely walk, the small sharp flints having so wounded their feet, that their tracks up the steps of the Cathedral were marked with blood.

The grand altar of the Cathedral was hung with black cloth, and lighted up with thousands of tapers.  On one side of it was a throne for the Grand Inquisitor, on the other, a raised platform for the Viceroy of Goa, and his suite.  The centre aisle had benches for the prisoners, and their godfathers; the other portions of the procession falling off to the right and left, to the side aisles, and mixing for the time with the spectators.  As the prisoners entered the Cathedral, they were led into their seats, those least guilty sitting nearest to the altar, and those who were condemned to suffer at the stake being placed the farthest from it.

The bleeding Amine tottered to her seat, and longed for the hour which was to sever her from a Christian world.  She thought not of herself, nor of what she was to suffer; she thought but of Philip; of his being safe from these merciless creatures—­of the happiness of dying first, and of meeting him again in bliss.

Worn with long confinement, with suspense and anxiety, fatigued and suffering from her painful walk, and the exposure to the burning sun, after so many months’ incarceration in a dungeon, she no longer shone radiant with beauty; but still there was something even more touching in her care-worn, yet still perfect features.  The object of universal gaze, she had walked with her eyes cast down, and nearly closed; but occasionally, when she did look up, the fire that flashed from them spoke the proud soul within, and many feared and wondered, while more pitied that one so young, and still so lovely, should be doomed to such an awful fate.  Amine had not taken her seat in the Cathedral more than a few seconds, when, overpowered by her feelings and by fatigue, she fell back in a swoon.