“I am not mad!  I am not mad!” cried she, vehemently.  “Oh, save me!—­save me from these men!  I have no protector on earth but my father, and him they are murdering!”

The familiars shook their heads; her wildness corroborated the assertions of Don Ambrosio, and his apparent rank commanded respect and belief.  They relinquished their charge to him, and he was consigning the struggling Inez to his creatures.

“Let go your hold, villain!” cried a voice from among the crowd—­and Antonio was seen eagerly tearing his way through the press of people.

“Seize him! seize him!” cried Don Ambrosio to the familiars, “’tis an accomplice of the sorcerer’s.”

“Liar!” retorted Antonio, as he thrust the mob to the right and left, and forced himself to the spot.

The sword of Don Ambrosio flashed in an instant from the scabbard; the student was armed, and equally alert.  There was a fierce clash of weapons:  the crowd made way for them as they fought, and closed again, so as to hide them from the view of Inez.  All was tumult and confusion for a moment; when there was a kind of shout from the spectators, and the mob again opening, she beheld, as she thought, Antonio weltering in his blood.

This new shock was too great for her already overstrained intellect.  A giddiness seized upon her; every thing seemed to whirl before her eyes; she gasped some incoherent words, and sunk senseless upon the ground.

Days—­weeks elapsed, before Inez returned to consciousness.  At length she opened her eyes, as if out of a troubled sleep.  She was lying upon a magnificent bed, in a chamber richly furnished with pier-glasses, and massive tables inlaid with silver, of exquisite workmanship.  The walls were covered with tapestry; the cornices richly gilded; through the door, which stood open, she perceived a superb saloon, with statues and crystal lustres, and a magnificent suite of apartments beyond.  The casements of the room were open to admit the soft breath of summer, which stole in, laden with perfumes from a neighbouring garden; from whence, also, the refreshing sound of fountains and the sweet notes of birds came in mingled music to her ear.

Female attendants were moving, with noiseless step, about the chamber; but she feared to address them.  She doubted whether this was not all delusion, or whether she was not still in the palace of Don Ambrosio, and that her escape, and all its circumstances, had not been but a feverish dream.  She closed her eyes again, endeavouring to recall the past, and to separate the real from the imaginary.  The last scenes of consciousness, however, rushed too forcibly, with all their horrors, to her mind to be doubted, and she turned shuddering from the recollection, to gaze once more on the quiet and serene magnificence around her.  As she again opened her eyes, they rested on an object that at once dispelled every alarm.  At the head of her bed sat a venerable form, watching over her with a look of fond anxiety—­it was her father!